Frisée

Practically every bistro in France has a version of this salad—salade frisée aux lardons—on the menu. Made with frisée, a frilly green in the chicory family, and traditionally topped with a poached egg, it is very rich—not the sort of salad to eat every day, but wonderful occasionally as a substantial lunch or a light supper.

Chicory flowers are Aequinotales, meaning the flowers open and close at the same time just like clockwork. Here, that is from around six in the morning until the sun is high at noon. About the same time these blossoms are awakening, chicory roots blended with coffee are percolating across Louisiana. They make a fine combination. This dressing has the faintest sweetness of Louisiana molasses that works with the coffee to balance the bitter bite of the salad greens.

I like taking foods I’ve grown up with and putting an adult spin on them. This knife-and-fork salad contains the elements of a BLT—bacon, lettuce, and tomato—but I replace the mayo with a big wedge of incredibly full-flavored Roaring Forties blue cheese. It’s important for the bacon to be superthick, almost like a ham steak. If you don’t make the bacon yourself, which is so beyond worth it, go to your local butcher and bring home slab bacon. There are only a handful of ingredients in this simple dish, but they are all important and shouldn’t be skimped on.

A salad of unusual qualities, this vividly colorful combo celebrates the exotic autumn fruits of persimmon and pomegranate. The fusion of tastes is awesome: peppery watercress, sweet-spicy persimmon, tart pomegranate seeds, and salty cheese, all held together by a tangy vinaigrette. Leftover pomegranate vinaigrette will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to one week and goes great with grilled meats.

Are two yolks better than one? You bet! I have a real fondness for double-yolk eggs. In fact, I think every egg should have two yolks—I’m not an egg-white-omelet kind of guy to be sure. Luckily, there’s a farmer in my area who farms nothing but fresh double-yolk eggs; it’s pretty cool. Now, assuming you might not be able to get these, for ease, I’ve simply added extra yolks to the recipe. Crack the eggs into a ramekin along with some tomato sauce and cheese, and bake until the egg whites begin to solidify while the cheese turns into a cap of melty goodness. This makes a great start to a hearty meal and can elevate an ordinary steak-and-eggs dish to a special brunch. Make it ahead and pop in the oven when almost ready to serve.

Do you know anyone who does not make chicken salad with leftover chicken? We don’t. And folks tend to want mayonnaise, some fruity sweetness and/or nuts, crunch, and texture. We’re happy to oblige. We start with our homemade Mayonnaise (page 176). And if you have not yet tried the Pickled Mustard Seeds (page 187), this chicken salad gives you the perfect excuse. We’re not sure “pickled” is the perfect term for them—they’re flavored with sugar, vinegar, and water and puff up, caviar-like. This gives the chicken salad little bubbles that pop as you eat it, as caviar does, releasing a lightly mustardy flavor. The Pickled Red Onions (page 190) lend sweet, sour, and oniony flavors, as well as texture and crunch. Frisée adds texture as well. And using Roasted Tomatoes (page 195)—a staple in our own home kitchens—makes this sandwich a year-round choice.

Anchovies usually play a supporting role in a dish, typecast as the salty accent. But we just love them, so we challenged ourselves to craft a sandwich that actually features them. We knew that if we succeeded, we’d have a sandwich that could have a small but faithful following. And so it came to pass. We adapted an interesting Scandinavian preparation that paired anchovies with eggs—the richness of the eggs balances the tartness of the fish. We liked it. And, as it turns out, so does that small (but ever-growing) band of devotees we’d envisioned.

Most of us have had the classic egg-and-bacon sandwich. When conceiving of our own, we were inspired by the French salad of frisée au lardons, in which the bacon lardons are rendered and warmed up, gorgonzola is used for the dressing, and the frisée is tossed into the mix, becoming warm and wilted. Here, we have essentially married the salad and the classic sandwich, and the resulting ’wich illustrates that, by just doing a little more, you can take a standard sandwich to a higher realm. If you are preparing this recipe for a large number of people, you can fry the eggs and set them aside on parchment paper on a tray, popping them in the oven to heat them just a bit when you’re ready to assemble the sandwiches. This sandwich would be great made with poached eggs, as well.

Italians aren’t afraid of using spicy and slightly bitter greens in their salads, and you shouldn’t be either. Belgian endive are small, pale (white) heads of lettuce with yellow tips; they can be eaten raw (as in this salad) or grilled or roasted—the possibilities are endless. Frisée has slender, curly leaves that are a yellow-green color. The blood oranges add a hint of tart sweetness and a beautiful refreshing color to this salad—they’re orange with bright red or red-streaked white flesh. The dressing, nuts, orange segments, and lettuces can all be prepared ahead of time, no last-minute fuss.

This soup exemplifies the Ligurian love of vegetables, which is one of the things I love most about that cuisine. It demonstrates that with vegetables alone—there’s no meat or meat stock in it—you can cook immensely flavorful and satisfying dishes. This is my re-creation of the heavenly vegetable soup served by my cousin Lidia Bosazzi when my parents took my brother Franco and me to Genova before we immigrated to America. With more kinds of vegetables than I could count—and that aroma of pungent garlic, which I have never forgotten—this is one of the most satisfying soups I know. More than most dishes, soups accommodate variation and improvisation, and, as usual, I encourage you to experiment with this recipe. You don’t need every vegetable in the exact amount listed for the zuppa—use what you have or like. And even the all-important garlic can be reduced (or increased) according to your family’s taste. A substitution or addition that I recommend, in fact, is to use all the aromatic onion-family members that come in springtime—fresh spring onions and spring garlic with green shoots, scallions, baby leeks. They make every soup better. At home I make this in large quantities, and that is how I share it with you. With all the work of washing and chopping vegetables, I like to have plenty of soup to enjoy right away and a couple of quarts in the freezer for a future meal. You can cut the recipe in half if you like, but I believe you go through your days feeling better when there’s a delicious soup stored at home, ready to be enjoyed and to sustain you.

Letting the hot steak rest over a platter of frisée serves to gently wilt the greens.

In case you shy away from the pork-fat dressing of the classic frisee, you can always turn to this lighter, but equally delicious version, which substitutes crackling salmon skin for the lardons. Broiled salmon skin is a sushi bar staple, and the ginger in this dish echoes that connection. And further interest is provided by a very sympathetic dose of sherry vinegar. A multi-culti triumph!

This riff on the classic frisée salad with lardons is the perfect thing to make with leftover hazelnuts from our 10 Minute Main Hake with Hazelnuts and Capers . It looks delicate, but its vinaigrette is enriched with the nuts and some bacon fat, which not only gives it substance but also balances the bitterness of the frisée and the bite of the radishes.

A delicious winter salad that would also be great alongside pork chops.

Yes, the paper-thin disks of raw beet will spill their pink color across the escarole and frisée dressed with a lusty vinaigrette, but don't fret—those splashes are part of this simple salad's charm.