Just like chilled soups in the summer, warm salads in the winter are a good way to create something a little different and get you out of the same old routine. Warm salads can be the entire meal or the entrée before the main course. It can also be a quick way to get a meal on the table. One of my favorite easy dinners is to buy a whole rotisserie chicken still warm from the oven, remove the meat, slice it up, and arrange it on top of a mixed green salad. If I felt creative, I might add some cooked grains or lentils, or maybe an almond-crusted disc of baked goat cheese. Roasted or sautéed vegetables or mushrooms can be mixed in at the last moment. I’ve made warm salads out of every kind of meat or fish, but the thing to remember is that it’s important to have every warm ingredient cut or torn into small pieces so it doesn’t weigh down and smash the lettuce.
Vinaigrettes and dressings are important too, so think about having a fish or roasted asparagus salad with a lemon or citrus vinaigrette and balsamic dressing with a heartier salad of beef, pork, or mushrooms. Just make sure to have all the ingredients chopped and ready and your friends or family ready to dig into your salad while it’s still warm.
Here is a recipe for the kind of warm salad that I could eat all the time. In another version of this salad, I use roasted chanterelle mushrooms instead of the fingerling potatoes and toasted hazelnuts to replace the egg.
Little Gem lettuce, also known as Sucrine, is described as a cross between butter lettuce and romaine. We grow it at Stone Edge Farm and it is especially well suited to warm salads because of its sturdy leaves. The inner leaves of butter lettuce or escarole makes a good substitution, as does spinach as long as it is not the baby variety that comes in the plastic bags. Treviso is a type of radicchio with more romaine-like leaves and is readily available at the farmer’s market.
Recipe
Warm Salad of Little Gem Lettuce and Treviso, Bacon, Egg, and Fingerling Potato
serves 4
Ingredients:
1/2 pound of fingerling or new potatoes
2 hard cooked eggs
8 slices dry-cured bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small red onion, sliced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 head Little Gem or butter lettuce, outer leaves removed, washed, dried and torn into bite-sized pieces
1 head Treviso, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preparation:
Boil potatoes in salted water for 15 minutes or until fully cooked. Let cool and slice into discs.
Boil eggs for 10 minutes and cool in ice water. Peel and set aside.
Cook the bacon in a large skillet with the oil until halfway rendered, but not browned.
Add the onions and potatoes and slowly brown everything over a medium low heat, stirring frequently to prevent the bacon from getting too brown. This will take about 10 minutes.
Add in the balsamic and turn off the heat. Pour the bacon and potato mixture over the lettuces in a bowl and add salt and pepper. Toss gently making sure each leaf is well coated.
Divide evenly among four plates and grate the egg on top of each salad.
For a more wilted version of this salad, toss the lettuces right in the pan after turning off the heat.
