Thursday, September 29, 2011

FFwD: Deconstructed BLT and Eggs

You don't need me to tell you that a "BLT, hold the lettuce" is one of the greatest sandwiches ever invented. I have no problem with lettuce in moderation, but most diners pack six inches of iceberg onto a BLT, using up precious real estate that would better be served by tomatoes or mayo or baaaaaacon. Since I have no need for lettuce in my life, you can imagine my concern when I saw that this week's French Friday's with Dorie selection from Around My French Table was Deconstructed BLT with Eggs (pg 133). Dorie took one of my favorite meals in the world (especially when paired with a vanilla egg cream. Ohhhh baby!) and turned it into a salad. No holding the lettuce this time, I guess.

I gave myself an extra step by making Dorie's slow-roasted tomatoes this morning instead of buying sun-dried tomatoes. I considered making mayo, per Dorie's suggestion, but when I looked at her recipe and realized that it would only keep for a day or two, I decided against it, since I'd only be using a smidgen. Someday when I have better plans for it, I'll try making my own mayo.

The most inspired piece of this recipe is to brown cubes of country bread in the bacon grease left over from crisping up the bacon. Well, if I must.

I made myself eat the entire bag of arugula. The remainder would rot in the fridge, just like every other bag of lettuce I've ever bought, if I didn't finish it in one sitting. There's a lot of lettuce in a bag. I was definitely sick of this salad by the time I reached the end.

This was tasty, as far as salads go. The vinaigrette was the perfect tart counterpoint to the sweet  tomatoes and the bacon. The hard-boiled egg provided a nice contrasting texture. Heavy on the lettuce and light on the bacon and mayo, this salad was the exact opposite of what I like in a BLT. 

Conclusion: Liked it, but if I'm going to bother with bacon and mayo and bread, I'll stick with a sandwich (no lettuce.) I'd eat it again if I were looking for a way to force myself to eat a bag o' arugula.

I also played catch-up on one of the previously-covered FFwD recipes. I intended to make David Lebovitz's Maple-Walnut Pear Cake from Ready for Dessert to bring to my book club tonight, but then I remembered that one girl is allergic to nuts. Argh. I still had Salted Butter Break-ups (pg 400 of Around My French Table) on the brain after reading Rose's post on it the other day, so I copied her and threw it together. Rose said that they didn't keep well for more than a day, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to dispose of the whole thing in one go.

This is one giant cookie that you break up into pieces. I really hope the book club ladies don't think that I brought them a kitchen accident, because these win no points for presentation. Flavor-wise, though, they are buttery deeeelicious, with a salty side-note. They remind me of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies. Next time, I'll roll the dough thinner, because the crispy brown parts are the best. I had to stop myself from eating the whole thing (after all, it was only one cookie, right?).

Conclusion: Loved it.

18 comments:

  1. any cookie recipe with two of the three words in the title being 'salted' and 'butter' is a win in my book. how'd you get the texture on there? looks delicious

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  2. I didn't really fancy eating a big plate of salad with eggs and meat on top so I gave this recipe a miss this week. I do like the look of your salted butter cookies though, so I'll probably be making a giant one of that to enjoy as part of my eat-only-one-cookie a day rule! LOL.

    Btw, I've asked a friend to bring your cookie press to London and post it from there today so it'll arrive to you much earlier! Yaaaay...

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  3. I am with you on this - I am not a salad kind of girl. I am lucky that the supermarkets sell salad leaves loose, so I just bought a large handful specifically for this. I liked the end result though.

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  4. Woo! A double Dorie post! Great job, especially on making the slow-roasted tomato recipe.

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  5. You'd get along just great with my husband. He thinks that lettuce is the greatest fraud perpetrated against mankind! Weren't those cookies amazing?

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  6. Too funny, I love salads, but otherwise I agree with pretty much every word of your post. I also considered making my own mayo for about two seconds and then put it off. It's one of those things that I would like to make at least once in my life, but which I am generally quite happy to buy from the store.

    Happy to hear that you enjoyed the cookie, it IS tasty! And I also had my monthly book club meeting just last night, we definitely seem to be on the same wave this week.

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  7. oooh I want to make the break-ups but if they dont keep that long, then I will have to eat it myself! Ok, correction, find someone to share it with ... I suppose.

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  8. Funny...you ate the whole thing, too.
    I love lettuces, but when we adopted our to Russian daughters, they honestly thought I was serving weeds...they do not eat lettuce of any type in their culture. They tried to catch me picking weeds from the back yard to serve for dinner. Took almost a year to even get them to try lettuce. But bacon...they could eat the whole pack and often did. Love that you did several posts in one. It's fun to catch up on the good stuff.

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  9. There's only so much arugula salad I can eat...I finally tossed the leftover greens. Glad you enjoyed the cookie...and hope your friends do, too~

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  10. I still have the remaining bag of arugula in my fridge as well. I love the idea of using the slow roasted tomatoes. I just may add those to the meatloaf sandwiches I have planned for Sunday football! Love the post.

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  11. Glad to read someone else was playing catch up this week - I did the oven-roasted tomatoes also! And those break ups - now you have me craving those again ;-)

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  12. I agree with you about greens. I *do* like them, but the grocery store packaging is meant for a family of 8. I'm lucky that one of my area grocery stores has a salad bar, so when I must buy greens, I can get a small amount (... at a jacked-up price). I grow arugula twice a year, but didn't have enough for this salad.

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  13. Sorry you didn't really like this one. I also made this salad with Dorie's slow-roasted tomatoes. I love them.
    Funny! When I made the salted butter breakups, I had the same feeling that they reminded me of PF Chessmen.

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  14. Frankly, unless it is served "a la Maytag" style, iceburg lettuce should be banned... Distributors should take it off as an option at restaurant supply houses - because the restaurants abuse it :-)

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  15. I still prefer my BLT in sandwich form too! Glad you liked the salted butter breakups. We really enjoyed them at my house.

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  16. I made mine with the slow roasted tomatoes too! I really enjoy those tomatoes! Sorry this wasn't a hit for you. We really enjoyed it. What can you say about the salted butter breakups except DELICIOUS!! They were a huge hit in my house!

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  17. So I think my idea of hell is a place where they serve all my favorite sandwiches deconstructed into salads. Whats next? A meatloaf salad? As for the breakups, I disagree on presentation. I put mine out at work on a large sheet of parchment and everyone thought it was the chicest thing. I told them it was how the French did it. lol.

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  18. (forgive me if this posts twice. blogspot posting problems. switched browsers0> your salad looks really good! I'm chuckling to myself because i used the same excuse when I made some Italian almond cookies in cake pans last year for a party: just one cookie...mmmm

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