Day 2 Salad 2 - Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing

It's day 2 and I made another great salad. I saw this recipe on Good Eats and thought "YUM!" so I took this opportunity to try it out. After a bit of research online, I saw that some recipes add shallots and honey mustard to the dressing and that sounded even better, so I went ahead and added them here.

OK- the one bummer in making this warm dressing is you have to have everyone ready to eat when you whip up the dressing- otherwise it separates. It really does need to be served immediately.

Another tip is to age your eggs if you are using farm fresh eggs. The fresher they are, the harder they are to peel. I keep my eggs for hard-boiling in the fridge for a couple of weeks.


Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing (This is my version of Alton Brown's recipe from Good Eats on the Food Network)

Ingredients

8 ounces young spinach
2 large eggs
8 pieces thick-sliced bacon, chopped
1 shallot chopped
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tsp Hot Honey mustard (I used Harry and David- that's just what I had in the door of my fridge- Thanks Mom)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 white mushrooms, halved and sliced
1/4 of a small red onion, very thinly sliced

Directions

Remove the stems from the spinach and wash, drain and pat dry thoroughly. Place into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Place the eggs into a pot and cover with cold water by at least 1-inch. Once the water comes to a boil, take the pot off the burner and set aside. Leave the eggs in the water for 15 minutes. take from hot water and put into an ice bath for 5 minutes. Remove and peel off the shell. Slice each egg into 8 pieces and set aside.

While the eggs are cooking, fry the bacon and remove to a paper towel to drain, reserving 3 tablespoons of the rendered fat. Crumble the bacon and set aside.

Transfer the fat to a small saucepan set over low heat add the chopped shallots and cook for 2 minutes and then whisk in the red wine vinegar and hot honey mustard. Season with a small pinch each of kosher salt and black pepper.

Add the mushrooms and the sliced onion to the spinach and toss. Add the dressing and bacon and toss to combine. Add the egg. Season with pepper, as desired. Serve immediately.


This salad was rich and decadent. I felt some pressure to eat it fast so that dressing was still warm, but other than that, it was a winner.