It was bacon smoking day. What to eat while smoking bacon? Bacon, of course. What to pair with bacon? Well I had some ridiculously nice eggs, and last time I checked, bacon and eggs were buds.
Dandelion salad w/ bacon-cider vinaigrette, minced bacon, poached egg, toast, and steamed asparagus.
I’ll be honest: dandelion have not been in my repertoire prior. People around here pummel them with herbicides, they’re THAT appreciated. They are the bane of the lawn-lover. But lately, my gardening philosophy has been heavily skewed towards native edibles, so when dandelions showed up in my yard and I was about to strike them down I thought: ‘um, I can eat this’. I knew they were bitter, so a Culinary Institute of America favorite warm bacon vinaigrette [if you’ve read the Professional Chef tome cover-to-cover a few times like I have, you know which one I mean] came into play to offer heavy sweetness and acidity. And it worked. The whole dish was yummy, and I will most certainly riff around this with other greens throughout the growing season. I’m now considering practical ways to plant and harvest dandelions rather than how to nuke them.
Spaghetoni CarbonaraI’ve posted my usual method sans-egg here, but given the themes of the evening, decided to go the full mile and incorporate egg to finish. I will in the future. It’s as simple as cracking an egg into the finished dish, and swirling it around to incorporate just prior to plating. What a simple, fantastic dish.