making a salad of wilted bitter greens

Spring is here and that means dandelion greens coming up...in our backyard. Picked a few handfuls of the youngest, tenderest leaves, washed them very thoroughly and made this salad inspired by the recipe for "frisee lardons" in Bourgain's Les Halles Cookbook, the chapter on dandelion greens in Serious Pig, and a recipe in Kasper's The Italian Country Table.

• Put clean, dry bitter greens in a bowl: dandelion, cress, curly endive ("frisee"), arugula, or the like. Allow a very generous handful per person (pp).
• Fry pieces of smokey bacon ("lardons") or pancetta in some olive oil until crisp, about 2 oz pp. Set aside the bacon and pour off (and save!) all but about 1 tbsp of bacon fat + olive oil pp.
• Add some minced garlic and a fair amount of thinly sliced French shallot or red onion to the pan and saute until softened. The shallot/onion plays an important role in this salad because it holds a lot of heat, which helps wilt the greens. The subtle sweetness also offsets the bitterness of the greens.
• Add about 1 tbsp red wine vinegar pp to the hot pan, stir and pour everything over the greens. Toss in the bacon and season with salt and pepper.

salad of wilted greens

Salad of wilted greens and bacon lardons with baby dandelion greens from our backyard

poached pears in wine... with chocolate

The clearance cart came through again, this time with a dozen ripe Bosc pears.

• Cut off the bottom so they'll stand up, peel and core with a melon baller/teaspoon/paring knife.
• In a nonreactive pan, place the pears in 2-3 cups of wine (I used white), 1 cup sugar, (a big strip of lemon zest, a few whole cloves, a cinnamon stick, orange juice,...) and add water to just cover the pears. Bring to a simmer and poach the fruit for about 20 minutes.
• Remove the fruit and allow to cool. Reduce the poaching liquid to a nice syrupy consistency (remember that it thickens as it cools). This takes a while.

Now, the pears are great at this point. Just eat them with that syrup. Or...

• Melt a few ounces of good chocolate.
• Stir in mascarpone cheese, some liqueur (Amaretto last night), a tiny pinch of salt and sugar to taste.
• Stuff the pears with this just before serving.

You could also make a ganache using heavy cream instead of the cheese or make it more "chocolate cheesecakey" by using cream cheese.