This is a wonderful spring salad, which makes great use of freshly picked asparagus.  Use purple asparagus if you can find it.  If you're not familiar with mache, also known as lamb's lettuce, it's a mild green with a slightly sweet, flowery taste.  It pairs well with the raw asparagus, pistachios, and parmesan cheese in this salad.

Mache, Asparagus, and Pistachio Salad (serves 4)
from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons roasted pistachios

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar

salt

4 spears jumbo asparagus, tips removed and saved for a different use

4 to 5 ounces mache, washed and dried

1 ounce chunk Parmesan cheese

Coarsely chop the pistachios, removing any discolored nuts.

Combine oil, vinegar, and salt to taste.

Slice asparagus at a steep angle, starting at the tip end, into 1/8 inch thick ovals.  Stop slicing if end becomes woody.

Toss the mache, asparagus, and pistachios with enough vinaigrette to lightly coat.  Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.  Divide salad among cold plates, leaving some pistachios in the bowl.  Use a vegetable peeler to shave small curls of the cheese over the salad.  Sprinkle the rest of the pistachios on top and serve.

Fans of the television show Top Chef will recognize this dish. This shrimp dish certainly spiced things up with the contestants. The dish has four Asian themed components: spicy marinated grilled shrimp, pickled chili peppers and cukes, miso glazed bacon, and deviled aioli. The team of Lisa Fernandes, Dale Talde, and Stephanie Izard created this dish to win the challenge during episode 5 of season 4. The theme of the episode was The Elements, with this dish representing "fire". In addition to winning the challenge one of the members of the winning team was rewarded with a trip to Italy for creating the best component of the dish. This prize went to Lisa for her miso glazed bacon. Dale was unhappy about this result, but I didn't think it was completely unexpected. Did Dale really expect to win a trip to Italy for making a pickled pepper garnish? Then again, his original recipe called for 7 pounds of peppers, so maybe he thought they should take center stage.

When I made this for Melanie and K a couple weeks ago, the bacon certainly was the star!

Grilled Shrimp with Pickled Chili Salad and Miso Glazed Bacon
(makes an appetizer for 4)
adapted from Top Chef Episode 5 Season 4

Ingredients:

Pickled Chili Relish:
5 chili peppers of different colors
5 mini bell peppers of different colors
1-1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
1 English cucumber sliced thin
3/4 cup canola oil
1/8 cup sesame oil

Shrimp:
8 jumbo shrimp, peeled, deveined
2 cloves garlic
1-1/2 teaspoons ginger, minced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sambal, chili garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

Deviled Aioli:
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 cup canola oil
2 eggs, hardboied, whites discarded
1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon sambal
1/2 teaspoon garlic chili sauce
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

Miso-glazed Bacon:
4 thick cut bacon strips
1/2 cup shiro (white) miso
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup rice wine vinegar
3/4 cup mirin

Pickled chili relish:
Choose a colorful array of peppers. If you like your food spicy add more chili peppers per bell pepper or vice versa. Slice peppers into 1/8-inch thick rings using a mandolin or sharp knife. Slice cucumbers into 1/8-inch slices. Wash pepper rings repeatedly under cold water to remove seeds and inner rind. In a sauce pot bring vinegar, mirin, sugar and salt to a simmer. When sugar is dissolved remove from heat. Pour over peppers and cucumbers. Let marinate for an hour. Bring oils to smoking poing and pour over peppers and cucumbers.

Shrimp:
Mix all ingredients together and toss with shrimp. Let sit in fridge for at least one hour then grill over high heat about 2 minutes per side.

Deviled Aioli:
In a bowl mix egg yolk with dijon mustard. Slowly whisk in oil, pouring in a very slow, until thickened like mayonnaise. Don't cease from whisking until all of the oil is incorporated. Push hardboiled yolk through the small side of a cheese grater and add to mayonnaise. Whisk in the remaining ingredients.

Miso-glazed Bacon:
Preheat oven to 375F. In a heavy saucepot whisk together miso, syrup, wine vinegar, and mirin and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and reduce sauce until thick and glossy, about half an hour. Meanwhile lay bacon on parchment paper and place on a baking sheet. Cover bacon with another sheet of parchment paper. Place a smaller baking sheet on top of bacon and weigh down with a heavy casserole dish. Place in preheated oven and bake for 11 minutes. Remove bacon and lay on a new sheet pan with parchment paper. Heavily glaze bacon with miso sauce. Return to oven and bake for 2 to 3 minutes. Peel glazed bacon off parchment to serve.

Plating the dish:
Put a spoonful of aioli in the middle of the plate and drizzle a bit more around the edge. Place 2 shrimp in the center of each plate. Top with a few peppers and a cucumber slice or two, pickling juice drained. Place a strip of miso-glazed bacon along-side shrimp.

Spring is officially here.  I know this because I saw asparagus, for the first time this year, today at the farmers market.  What is Spring without asparagus?

The asparagus is so fresh and delicious I haven't been able to resist eating it raw, stalk by stalk.  Maybe later this week I'll be inspired to do some asparagus recipes that are more involved than:  wash asparagus and eat.

Bacon is surprisingly easy to make and especially delicious when you make it yourself with a pork belly from a small farm.  Choosing a pork belly from a well treated pig will give you a leaner and firmer bacon than the factory farmed equivalent in your local grocery store. The only "special" ingredients that you need are said pork belly, pink salt also known as Instacure #1, dextrose, and wood chips if you choose to smoke the bacon.  You can use regular sugar instead of dextrose, but add a little more than half as much if you do.  The pink salt has nitrite, which in addition to preserving the red color of meat and keeping fat from becoming rancid, prevents many bacteria from growing, including the bacteria responsible for botulism.  It's possible to cure bacon without pink salt, but it's safer to include it. 

Fresh Bacon

recipe adapted from:  Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

Ingredients

Pork Belly (about 5 pounds)

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 tbsp Kosher Salt

1-1/2 tbsp dextrose (or 2-1/2 teaspoons table sugar)

1/2 tbsp pink salt

Mix dry ingredients together.  Place pork belly in large bag, preferably ziplock, and dump in dry ingredients.  Shake around and spread the salt mixture evenly over the pork belly.  Dump in maple syrup and spread over pork belly.  Refrigerate for 7 days, shaking the bag around every day or two.  You should feel the belly getting firmer with time.  After a week the belly should feel firm at its thickest point.  If it doesn't, refrigerate for a couple more days.

Remove pork belly from bag and rinse thoroughly.  Roast pork belly in grill over indirect heat with wood chips in foil pouch or smoker tray.  Apple, cherry, or maple wood is preferable.  Alternatively you may roast the bacon in a 200F oven.  Roast bacon until the internal temperature is 150F, 2 to 3 hours.  Start checking the temperature after 1-1/2 hours.

If bacon has skin or rind remove it while it's hot.  Try a slice of bacon now.  Yum!
Let bacon cool to room temperature.  Wrap in plastic wrap and put in ziplock bag.  Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks or freeze for up to 3 months.