I crave this salad so much. Finally I managed to replicate it at home. Let me back out a bit. I travel a bit for my work and a few years ago I had a project in Portland, Oregon. A lovely city with amazing food scene and tons of restaurants. One of my regular places was a place called Tasty and Alder. I loved sitting at the bar, getting a cocktail or beer and try something new. I almost always ordered their Radicchio salad. It’s a delightful combination of flavors and textures that I never got tired of. When i figured out that the guys from the Tasty restaurants have a book out, I immediately got a copy.
This puppy is definitely inspired by the classic French bistro salad of chicory and thick bacon pieces (Frisee au lardons). Yet, it is very different. It takes the bitter green and uses red radicchio instead, switches the dressing from a vinaigrette to a rich green goddess dressing and adds some grated Manchego for more salty savory punch. With chunks of soft cooked eggs it is damn near perfection in my book.
Green goddess dressing is an emulsified dressing that is rich and pungent with herbs. This one is based on a whole raw egg, a couple of hard-cooked egg yolks, avocados, vinegar, green onions and tarragon. These get blended well. Then, as if making a mayonnaise, oil (canola in this case) is added slowly until the whole thing is a creamy thick luxurious sauce. The recipe in the book, Hello! My Name is Tasty makes more than I would need for one or two salad bowls. Good thing too. I used it for all kinds of stuff over the next few days. It’s delicious as a dip for raw vegetables, mixed into a chicken salad instead of mayo or as a sandwich spread.
I always have homemade bacon on in the freezer. If you do not, a good quality store-bought thick cut smoked bacon would work. For this one I actually used home-cured smoked pork jowl bacon. I sliced it slightly thick, cut it into 1 inch pieces and slowly crisped it on the outside and kept it a bit chewy.
Soft cooked eggs are the best but peeling them always was a pain. That was until I learned the method of pricking a tiny hole in the “rounded” end of the egg before cooking it. I don’t much care what the science is (I think it has to do with the air pocket the egg has there or something) but this works pretty much all the time. I do not remember mangling an egg since I started doing that. It’s very easy. I use a thumbtack or small pin and gently poke a hole in the bottom rounded end of the egg and then gently drop it into simmering water. 6 minutes will give you nice soft-runny yolks, 8 minutes are more like a hard cooked yolks. These times are for large size eggs. Then chill the eggs in an ice bath and peel. For this salad, I cooked up 6-minute eggs.
To prepare the radicchio I cut it into bite size pieces. Then I soaked it in ice water for a bit. It helps it retain a lot of crispness and removes some of the bitterness. Still, it remains plenty sharp and bitter as it should be. So, if you do not like the taste of radicchio, this is not going to help much.
To serve it I tossed the leaves with some of the dressing, black pepper and added shredded Manchego cheese (I also tried it with Parmesan and that works great too). Towards the end of the tossing I added pieces of the tender eggs, the lardons and a handful of more cheese on top. This can make for a wonderful hearty side to steak or chop, but I enjoyed a large bowl as a dinner on its own and satisfied my craving. The rest of the book has a ton of amazing sounding recipe as well. I would love to dig into some more dishes.
