Wilted lettuce is usually thought of as the enemy of delicious salads, but intentionally wilting it (or “killing it”, as it is sometimes called) with bacon grease is a thing of beauty.
Photo by Edsel Little.
This Appalachian technique seems a little wrong, but it tastes very right. Hot bacon grease makes up the majority of the “dressing” coating the once crisp leaves with salty, greasy goodness, and killing them oh so softly. There are a lot of ways you can doctor it up (check out Food 52’s take in the link below), but the most important part is the hot grease, spooned lovingly over the leaves. From there, you can add vinegar, hot sauce or even an egg. Go crazy. (Just make sure you don’t forget the actual bacon from which your grease was rendered. That would be tragic.)
Do Right By Your Lettuce: Kill It [The Kitchn]
Comments
2 responses to “Why You Should Intentionally Wilt Lettuce With A Bacon Vinaigrette”
So, basically you should do this because bacon tastes nice.
That small minority of humanity who believe that occasionally eating things that do not taste like bacon adds a bit of variety to the diet are simply deluded.
Many years ago, I was fed a salad of young dandelion leaves, and they too were wilted with a hot bacon grease based dressing. It was very good.