My resilient salad
This recipe was written and sent by Sofia Dorfsman.
“This salad isn’t resilient, in a physical sense— which salad is?* This salad is resilient because my craving for it is everlasting, indestructible, and most persistent. No change in the season can dissuade me otherwise. Maybe it’s because I can never get the abundance of umami out of my mouth. ”
Sofia Dorfsman
About the salad
“I first made this salad on October 7, 2019. Then again on November 28, 2019, December 2, 2019, February 26 2020, March 25, 2020, and April 11, 2020. You must understand that this pattern is unlike me. I like to break routine. There might as well be a magnet inside of me that’s always drawn towards change, especially when I’m in the kitchen. I take each meal as an opportunity to try out a new method or combination of ingredients, but my ability to do so is inhibited when the craving for this salad resurfaces. There is comfort in repetition. And comfort is what I crave, maybe even more so than this salad, in the current state of our world. Every time I make it, I slightly change something. But here's what I did for the version I made and photographed on April 11th to share with you.”
Salads (ones with plentiful leaves) have the inability to be resilient because tender lettuces wilt so quickly once dressed. They will not be good the next day, nor after 2 hours. The leaves of a head of lettuce are some of the most fragile produce, in my eyes. Where I live, lettuces are best in spring/summer. Some hydroponic farmers provide a wonderful year-round bounty. But this is why I have found radicchio so reliable for so long. I find fresh radicchio to be more available throughout the year.”
The recipe
Ingredients
1 radicchio
25 raw hazelnuts
1 teasp of melted coconut oil
A pinch of salt
1/4 teasp of turmeric
1 strip of bacon
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 teasp of tamari
1 teasp of red vinegar
1/2 teasp of honey
1/4 teasp of Worcestershire sauce
A squeeze of lemon
A big pinch of salt
A bit of pepper
1/2 teasp of Dijon mustard
3 anchovy filets
1/4 cup of blue cheese
Or scratch all of that and make your own resilient salad—whatever combination of ingredients you can’t get out of your head, flavors that have stuck with you over time and can bring you back to another time. To a time you wish you were in instead of the one you’re currently in.
Process (in Sofia Dorphsman's style)
- This salad has multiple warm elements. It is best devoured immediately after being served, so before you begin, expect to be hungry in a matter of 30 minutes or so.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Roughly chop up 25 raw hazelnuts and place them in a small bowl.
- Add in 1 teaspoon of melted coconut oil, a pinch of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric.
- Stir together well, until the surface of each nut piece is slightly golden yellow from the turmeric and glistening from the oil.
- Spread out the nut mixture on a baking sheet. Place the sheet into the hot oven.
- Let the nuts roast while you put together the rest of the salad. But check on them every 5 minutes or so, to make sure they don’t burn.
- Cut a strip of bacon into narrow slivers. Place into a small pan and fry on low.
- Take a head of radicchio and cut it in half. Chop up one of the halves and place the leaves in a large mixing bowl. R
- eserve the other half for the next iteration of this salad you’ll make another day.
- In a cup, make the dressing. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of tamari, 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon honey, 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, a squeeze of lemon, big pinch of salt, and a couple of turns of a pepper mill.
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of dijon mustard and stir everything together vigorously.
- Chop up three anchovy filets, so finely that they almost become a paste. Scrape them off the cutting board and into the dressing.
- Crumble 1/4 cup of blue cheese onto the radicchio leaves. Now, get ready to work fast.
- At this point, the bacon should be crisp. Carefully dump the hot grease that surrounds the lardons into the dressing.
- Scoop the bacon bits onto the radicchio leaves.
- Take the hazelnuts out of the oven and transfer them to your bowl of radicchio, as well.
- Pour the warm dressing over the bowl. The nuts will sizzle.
- Mix together to coat the leaves evenly with the dressing. Serve.
Related images
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