My current assignment was to pick a salad recipe out of my
text book, The Professional Chef, and make it. I chose to make a spinach salad
with warm bacon vinaigrette. It seemed easy enough and it had everything I love
about food in it – fresh spinach and mushrooms, onions and bacon. Other than picking out a salad you had to
change up the recipe and (in the words of Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula
Abdul) “make it your own.” Since I do this with almost every recipe I make,
that was the easy part.
The recipe called for fresh spinach, mushrooms, red onions,
bacon, hard cooked eggs, croutons, shallots, garlic, vegetable oil, brown sugar and apple cider
vinegar. I changed this up by reducing the brown sugar, adding chopped grape
tomatoes and using sweet onions instead of shallots (simply because I forgot to
pick up the shallots at the market). I have to say, my husband and I were more
than pleased with this salad.
I loved the warm vinaigrette, but I did think it was a touch
too sweet. I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve tasted like had I added all of
the brown sugar. This could be because of my diabetes and my sensitivity to
sugary products, but then again, it could be because it was just too sweet. Next time I make this salad dressing I’m going
to try adding a brown sugar substitute and see how that works out.
The thing that really pulled this salad together was the
bacon. The instructions call for rendered bacon pieces, and I will say if you
don’t render the bacon (cook on a very low temperature) you probably won’t get
the proper texture. Rendering your bacon gives it a crisp yet chewy texture and
it slowly melts away the fat. I wouldn’t cook bacon any other way.
All in all, it was a successful assignment and once again I
must say…. I LOVE MY HOMEWORK!!!!
