Egg and bacon salad

 

Trust me to take a pic and in this one there being no egg!, turned out while I was faffing with a camera Luke had eaten the eggs he loves them.  This recipe came into being after reading an idea somewhere a few years ago and then remembering the idea while looking in the fridge thinking what on earth shall I cook? Being it is such a wonderful meal that is very adaptable to what you have on hand I thought I would share what I do to make mine. 

First things first.  In this instance I used half a pack of my local farm shops dry cure bacon bits. I dry fried them in a pan until they were nearly crispy and nicely browned. Being they were such good quality there was no excess fat in pan.  If there was however I would of saved it for dressing later.  Especially if I had subbed and used chorizo.

When the bacon was cooked I removed it from the pan with a slotted spoon putting the bacon to one side, and left the pan to use later untouched and not rinsed or wiped out.

As there was only 2 of us eating tonight I grabbed 7 or 8 large new potatoes and quartered them and boiled them until tender.  I also boiled 4 eggs. In this case I hard boiled them but soft boiled is lovely if you wish to.  Or even poached eggs work well.

So a rummage through the fridge revealed I had 1 1/2 little gem lettuces, some cucumber and chives.  I had found some sungold cherry tomatoes which are a slightly different texture and taste that normal ones.  Sort of a velvety texture and mellowed taste.  So I chopped these up and placed in a serving bowl reserving chives for last minute.

At this point my potatoes are now done and drained, eggs are cooling in their shells and in a bowl of cold water cooling a little. Then comes the fun.  Back to the bacon pan.  Now if there is fat in the pan you can remove all but around just over a tablespoon of it.  But being this was dry and just had cooked on bits on bottom of pan I put the pan back on a gentle heat and added a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, just under half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and salt and pepper and whisked it together and tasted to check seasoning.  It should be warmed through but not hot.  Turn the heat off and tumble in the now just warm new potatoes and coat in the dressing.  Doesn't look wildly exciting but tastes good. 

I leave the potatoes in the pan to absorb some flavour and cool a bit while I peel eggs and chop into quarters.  Then I toss the bacon and potatoes through the salad and finish off by placing eggs over and chives.  Serve on it's own or with bread or even croutons are a really good addition if you have some slightly stale bread around.

This is great for using any left overs up or for lunchboxes the next day as it's good warm or cold. Very adaptable to whatever salad leaves or items you have on hand. Simple to make but a real family pleaser.

Sat here with my coffee the morning after posting this I got asked by son why didn't we have cress with this last night! If you have one of those boxes of cress you can buy or grown some it does work beautifully with this. As do whatever salad leaves you like to use normally.