Dorie Greenspan’s Bacon and Egg and Asparagus Salad

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I could eat our local asparagus until it was coming out of my ears. Thanks to growers in Mexico and Peru, asparagus is now a 12 month a year vegetable in New York and almost everywhere else. However, nothing but nothing comes close to the glorious look and taste of the asparagus grown right over the hill from our house at the Falkowski’s farm. From there, it goes to Country Garden, their farm stand that’s just down the road. The Farm stand just opened this weekend and for a short while, the asparagus will be the only field grown crop at the stand. There are also hothouse tomatoes and lettuces but it will be a while before the stand brims with the fruits and vegetables that are summer staples here. Instead, I will gladly eat asparagus and I’m always on the lookout for new ways to serve it. That’s how I found this recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s “Around my French Table” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2010).

Dorie Greenspan’s life is an object of great envy on my part. The James Beard award-winning author divides her time between an apartment in Paris and one in New York. She is best known for her baking books, which won her the Beard award. But once she had a Parisian kitchen to cook in, she soon expanded her repertoire beyond butter cookies and chocolate éclairs. Julia Child paid Ms. Greenspan the compliment of saying “You write recipes the way I do.”. That is to say, Ms. Greenspan, like Ms. Child, leaves nothing out. Famously, Ms. Child’s recipe for French bread in Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume II ran to 22 pages! Ms. Greenspan’s recipe for today’s Bacon and Eggs and Asparagus Salad ran only to three after a two-page introduction to Asparagus itself. But it so complete, it’s impossible to screw it up.

Not that this is in any way a salad that’s thrown together in five minutes. Instead, Ms. Greenspan introduces us, or me at least, to a new way of cooking eggs. Boiled till they are just set, then carefully peeled and finally rewarmed by rolling them around in bacon fat, they were something Ms. Greenspan observed at a café in Paris and then translated for the home cook. You’ll notice that our pictures show two eggs per plate. This is because I was terrified that I would not be able to de-shell the eggs without breaking them. In fact, it wasn’t that hard at all and I ended up with two a plate. I made this dish using slab bacon cut into two ¼ inch thick slices. Ms. Greenspan called for 6 strips of bacon—no word on thickness. I’d highly recommend this as a brunch or lunch dish but it would make a super dinner salad. Here is the recipe:

Recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s Bacon and Egg and Asparagus Salad Serve 4. Takes about 40 minutes to make.

For the Vinaigrette:

1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon hazelnut or walnut oil

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

For the Salad:

4 large eggs, cold, extremely fresh

20 asparagus spears, preferably thick, trimmed and peeled

6 slices Applewood Smoked Bacon

3 handfuls mesclun or other mixed salad greens, rinsed and dried

1/3 cup hazelnuts or walnuts, chopped

First, make the vinaigrette:

Put all the ingredients in a small jar, cover, and shake to blend; or use a small bowl and a whisk. Set aside, and shake (or whisk) again before using. (You can make the vinaigrette up to a week in advance and keep it in the fridge.)

To make the salad:

1. Bring a medium saucepan of heavily salted water to a boil. One by one, put the cold eggs on a spoon and slowly and gently lower them into the water (saying a little don’t-let-my-egg-break prayer on the way down). Allow the eggs to boil for exactly 6 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat, lift the eggs into a strainer, and run them under cold water to cool them quickly. Fill the pan with cold water and leave the eggs in the water until needed.

2. Bring a large skillet of salted water to a boil. Slip the asparagus into the pan and cook for 4 minutes, or until you can pierce the spears with the tip of a paring knife. The asparagus should be cooked through but not at all mushy. Carefully transfer the spears to a plate lined with a double thickness of paper towels and pat them dry.

3. Pour out the salted water, rinse the skillet to cool it, dry it, and lay the strips of bacon in the pan. Cook over medium-low heat, turning as needed, until the bacon is golden and crisp on both sides. Remove the strips and put them between a double thickness of paper towels; when the bacon is cool, cut it into narrow strips or chop it into bits. Leave 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat in the skillet — you’ll use it for the eggs.

4.When you’re ready to serve, very, very carefully shell the eggs. It’s a fussy job, because the eggs are so soft, and you might not get the shells off cleanly, but unless you break into the yolks, it will be fine. Rinse the eggs to remove any bits of shell and pat them dry. Warm the bacon fat over medium heat.

5. While the bacon fat is heating, assemble the salad. You can put it together on a platter or arrange it on individual plates. Either way, season the mesclun with salt and pepper, then toss it with about three quarters of the vinaigrette, and arrange in the center of the platter or your plates. Toss the asparagus with the remaining vinaigrette (I do this with my fingers) and lay the spears over the greens.

6. Now return to the skillet. When the fat is warm, gingerly slip the eggs into the skillet and roll them around in the fat for a minute or two, just to coat them with fat, heat them slightly, and color them a little.

7. Lift the eggs out of the skillet and place them on top of the asparagus. Scatter the bacon bits and toasted nuts over the salad and serve immediately.

Dorie Greenspan’s Tips:A great starter for a spring or summer dinner, the salad can also be the main event at a warm-weather lunch. If you serve it for lunch, think about serving a hunk of cheese (or a small platter of cheeses) as well. Nutty cheeses like Comté, Gruyère, or Parmesan go particularly well with asparagus.

You can make the vinaigrette days ahead, and it’s okay to cook the asparagus, bacon, and eggs a couple of hours ahead, but the eggs’ final swirlaround in the bacon fat and the salad’s assembly need to be last-minute.

Dorie Greenspan’s Bacon and Egg and Asparagus Salad

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