France and the Alps · Volume 13, Wine, Mustard and the Fifth Quarter
Salade lyonnaise
Lyon
Illustration
A composed salad tied directly to canut food culture: frisée, originally young dandelion leaves, gathered wild in spring, frisée becoming the common substitute as it was cheap and abundant, smoked lardons fried crisp, croûtons of dried bread gilded in butter, a poached egg, a vinaigrette built on walnut oil and wine vinegar. Multiple sources describe it as cheap, filling and energy-dense, built from the by-products of Lyon's charcuterie trade and eaten as a full meal by silk workers rather than as a starter, exactly the fifth-quarter economy that runs through all Lyonnais food.
As tradition built it
Poach the eggs 3 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 large head frisée
- 200g lardons
- as available stale bread, cubed
- 4 eggs
- as available vinegar, for the poaching water
- 3 tbsp walnut oil
- 1 tbsp wine vinegar
- to taste a little Dijon mustard
- to taste seasoning
Method
- Wash and dry the frisée well, tearing rather than cutting the leaves.
- Blanch the lardons in cold-started water, drain, then render and crisp in a dry pan.
- Fry cubes of stale bread in the rendered lardon fat until golden.
- Poach the eggs, three minutes, in barely simmering, lightly vinegared water, for a soft yolk.
- Whisk a vinaigrette of walnut oil, wine vinegar, a little Dijon mustard and seasoning.
- Toss the frisée with the warm lardons, croûtons and vinaigrette while everything still carries some heat, and top each portion with a poached egg, breaking it at the table so the yolk runs into the leaves.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide eggs, Big Green Egg-toasted croûtons, cold-pressed walnut oil and a lardon-powder dust
Method
- Poach the eggs sous vide at 63°C for a perfectly set white and fully liquid yolk, no ragged white trails, then a brief hot-water dip just before serving.
- Toast the croûtons over the Big Green Egg's direct heat in the lardon fat, in a cast-iron pan set on the grate, for a smokier, more textured crouton than a stovetop version gives.
- Make the vinaigrette with a genuine cold-pressed, unroasted walnut oil rather than a roasted one, for a cleaner, less bitter nuttiness that lets the mustard and vinegar carry more of the sharpness.
- Finish with a few shavings of the same crisped lardon, blitzed to a fine powder in the high-power blender, dusted over the top for a concentrated savoury note layered on top of the whole pieces already in the salad.