Speaker: Creating interesting salad is a constant battle. I am going to show you how by using really simple fresh ingredients today, we can create a wonderful exciting salad. It's going to be a beautiful spinach salad. As you can see I have got some beautiful Wild Irish Smoked Salmon here. I am also going to use some baby spinach or poo spinach as it's called in France, we have got some lovely smoked bacon. I have already peeled some eggs, when you are boiling the eggs, it's very important to put a little bit of salt in tap water, that's going to help the skins come off those eggs a lot easier.
I have got some nice fresh raspberries that we are going to dress it with and I have already chopped up some apple, which will make your job a lot easier when we are putting the salad together, just cover it with a little bit of cling film and that will keep it nice and green. I have also got a little bit of spring onion, so the first thing we are going to do is, we are going to start chopping our eggs up. As you can see I have boiled these for nine minutes and that leaves us a beautiful soft egg yolk. I am just going to split the yolk into one bowl and the egg white is going into the other one. The egg yolk is actually going to help thicken our dressing and the egg white is going to be sprinkled over the top.
So I am going to chop up the egg white, until a nice fine dice, I will sprinkle that over the top later. Now that we have the egg yolks in a bowl, we are going to mash that in with a fork and we are going to form a little paste, this is going to get the dressing an absolutely beautiful body, incorporate our dejon mustard and our nice fresh lemon juice that I have squeezed before hand. Once again, we will bring that together with the fork. So, you are going to have that real sort of punchy flavor of the lemon juice, the nice kick of the mustard. So, once that's in a nice paste, we are going to start adding our olive oil and then I am using a little jug, very practical for pouring it in nice and slowly. You want a slow consistent stream of oil flowing in there and just keep beating it with your fork.
What we are forming here is an emulsion, a little bit faster and that's our dressing ready to go. So we are going to light that gas on a medium heat. Now I have the bacon here and what I have done with this bacon, is I have blanched it, that means we have cut it into little pieces and we are going to drop it into nice boiling hot water for about 15 seconds, take it back out and cool it down under cold water. What that does, is that removes a lot of the fat content from that bacon and we are going to get a lovely crisp feeling from that on the pan. We will start it with a tiny, tiny drop of olive oil, you really don't need much here, because you have got that little bit of fat content in the bacon that's going to help it stop sticking.
So you hear that little sizzle, that's exactly what we are looking for, and because this bacon is already cooked in the water, we are going to find that it will crisp up very, very fast. I guess this is only going to take maximum about a minute. So we will keep it moving at the side, just gently shake the pan and make sure it's evenly distributed. We are not going to walk away from this, we are going to stay and make sure it gets some nice even crispness and like that, but I can see that it's getting nice and crispy and that's going to add a wonderful texture to that salad. So what I am going to do is I am going to bring across a plate, and on that plate I have got a little bit of kitchen towel, and that's going to drain out all the excess fat.
There is no much fat here, because we've blanched it, but we are going to make doubly sure that we got rid of it all, and keep that salad as healthy as possible. So what I am going to do, is I am going to fit my bacon to one side for a moment and we are going to start binding the salad and building it basically. I have got my apples that I have diced up earlier. Basically you take the core out of the apple, you peel it, and you dice it in a rough dice like that. Now I cover that in cling film, and I put a little bit of lemon juice on that, and that stops the oxidation, and it really keeps them nice and fresh. So we will put that into our mixing bowl, and what I will do, is I'll get the spinach out of the fridge, which I have kept in there to keep it nice and fresh.
So the spinach is just going to go in on top of those apples. So we are going to go with our dressing there on top, and what I usually do when I am using the dressing, is I put about two thirds of that in, we don't want it too wet. And then we can always go back and dress it little bit more afterwards, but if you start it off too wet, you haven't got a hope. So we will just bring that together nicely like that, and you can see that's starting to coat the leaves beautifully, very nice.
So now we are going to start dressing the salad, and the first thing we are going to use, is our wonderful fresh Irish Smoked Salmon. I am just going to layer that either on the edge of the bowl and I am dressing it here for one person. You could always use a big bowl and make this a family style event. So right in goes the salmon, and the next thing here we are going to use, is our lovely fresh spinach, and that's just going to go into the middle, and we are going to try and build it up to give that salad just a little bit of height. So, just do it a leaf at a time, get your nice shiny side up, and what's very important obviously is, I am using my hands, I have given my hands a really good wash before I started this.
Then I am just going to go with a couple of the apples on top like that. So the next thing I am going to put on to this is the egg whites that I have chopped up earlier. I've put them aside, I've given them a nice fine dice, because it's going to go right on the outside. So we are going to just sprinkle a few of our lovely fresh raspberries on top. So we will just give it a few of those around the outside and I don't think you are really ever going to see a more colorful salad then this, bear it in mind that it's not even finished yet, I am going to finish my dressing back. What we are going to do here is, I've kept my pan that I have saved the bacon of in and what we are going to do, when that comes back up to heat, is we are going to do a process which is called, deglazing.
What we are going to do, is we are going to get all that lovely flavor back out of the pan that we took the bacon in, using some fresh raspberry vinegar. So once that starts to heat up, when we feel little bit of smoke, I have just got a little bit of raspberry vinegar, and we are just going to make sure you get that nice heat out of that. Now this whole process is only going to take ten to fifteen seconds, but it's really going to give that salad a beautiful, beautiful bacon and raspberry flavor. So you can see this is evaporating, I give it about three, four more second, now we are going to take that over, and we are not going to put it on our spinach, because if I use that hot liquid, that spinach just will wilt down and collapse. So we want to keep that lovely height in the spinach.
I am just going to drizzle a little bit around the outside. Now you can really see that that salad is starting to take shape. So, I am just going to finish that salad off with a few little touches. I have got some scallions here; you might know them as spring onions or green onions. I am going to just put a little bit on top of that, and that's going to give it a lovely crunch. Now the most important part of the salad in my opinion is this lovely smoked bacon, and we will just drizzle a little bit over there, and the whole process has made sure that that bacon is as healthy as possibly be. There is very, very little fat in that, that's really crispy and I think it's going to be amazing.
I will put a few fresh dill leaves for another bit of color and that's it. I would be really surprised if you could find a better salad then that.
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