We enjoy eating hearty main-dish salads for dinner fairly often. I usually just wing-it, using ingredients we have on hand or that need to get used up. Sometimes it’s fun to actually follow a recipe, discovering delicious flavor combinations along the way. This week’s Cook the Book Fridays recipe gave me a change to try one such salad recipe.
Frisée Salad with Bacon, Egg, and Garlic Toasts, also known as salade lyonnaise, is classic French fare. It’s a salad made with (you guessed it) frisée, bacon, poached or hard-boiled eggs, and garlic croutons, but it also includes potatoes and a tasty vinaigrette.
I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter, with a couple of small exceptions: I mixed in some Romaine lettuce with the frisée, and I left the raw garlic out of the vinaigrette (but I did include the fried garlic clove from making the croutons). My husband assembled his own salad, personalizing it to his own tastes. He left out the potatoes and croutons, added grated cheese, and used blue cheese dressing instead of the vinaigrette.

Leftovers for Lunch
We loved this salad! The combination of flavors was perfect. I liked the extra heartiness the potatoes added, and I LOVED the croutons (why don’t I make croutons more often?). My husband enjoyed his version as well. I had enough leftovers for a delicious lunch the next day. I am sure I will be making salade lyonnaise again.
This post participates in Cook the Book Fridays, an online group currently cooking our way through David Lebovitz’s book, My Paris Kitchen. This week’s recipe can be found on page 99. Join us!