Friday, March 13, 2009

Choucroute Salad

A fringe benefit from preparing the choucroute garnie in the previous post. We had some leftover bacon, sausage, and potatoes. There was a bit of sauerkraut left, too. I made a simple vinaigrette, stirring in the 'kraut, chopped fine, at the end:

2 tsp
Leatherwood Vinegary apple wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp grain mustard
2 Tbsp canola oil
pinch salt
several grinds black pepper
about 2 Tbsp finely chopped leftover sauerkraut

1 link sausage sliced, browned
2 thick slices bacon, cut into lardons, browned
2 boiled potatoes, chunked up, tossed in with the meats to warm
2 eggs, poached
1 small shallot, sliced, fried till crisp in a little butter--optional
Hearty salad greens like frisée

Our
co-op had some local, hydoponic salad greens from LaBore Farms,near Faribault, mostly frisée with some purple mustard, tatsoi, that sort of thing. Wash, spin, and dress the greens, saving back a little dressing. Top the greens with the meats and potatoes, drizzle the rest of the dressing around. Top with a poached egg, and give it the gratuitous gourmet garnish of fried shallots, if you please.

I love this kind of bistro dinner salad, topped with a poached egg. Very local, very simple, very delicious.

The local products involved: LaBore Farms greens, home-smoked bacon, homemade sausage from Hidden Stream pork, home-fermented sauerkraut from Midtown Farmers' Market cabbage, Leatherwood vinegar, Schultz organic eggs, Midtown market shallots (still have a few left!), MFM potatoes, homemade bread from all organic Minnesota flours, Hope Creamery butter.

How're we doing?



Text and photos copyright 2009 by Brett Laidlaw

5 comments:

  1. this looks delicious. I so enjoy reading your recipes! i am a huge fan of some bitter green with a vinagrette and topped with a poached egg...with some crust bread to sop up the yolk and dressing left on the plate.

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  2. you're doing great! i have been following your blog since your edesia gig.

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  3. This looks delicious. Saw Alice Waters do something like it for Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes last night. I haven't had a poached eggs on greens 'n toast. Will try it.

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  4. Thanks for your note, d. There are times when I start thinking about a "frisée aux lardons" salad (of which this is a version), and then I can never be happy 'til I've eaten it! It's so appealingly rustic, yet at the same time, sophisticated (well, it is French...). The way the egg yolk mixes with the vinaigrette, coating all the greens, the salty, unctuous nuggets of bacon.... (Crap, it's 8:39 a.m., must think about something else, must think about something else....)

    Cheers~ Brett

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  5. Hi jini: That was a fun night at the Edesia Cookbook Review last summer, talking pig with Kim and Kristen. Thanks for your note, and for reading Trout Caviar.

    Anon., it's well known that Alice gets most of her ideas from me (!). You could build a whole restaurant around salads like this--in fact I've been to one such, in the city of Amboise in the Loire valley. I recall particularly the "salade Rabelaisienne," topped with all sorts of meats, paté, ham, confit duck gizzards, what-have-you. What a "chef's salad" ought to be!

    Brett

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