Friday Photo—Sunday Salad with French-ish Dressing

Sometimes, the weekends call for a nice salad for lunch. This tends to happen on Sundays, particularly when I know that I’m making something extra-hearty or indulgent (e.g. fried chicken).

I’m woefully behind on my magazine reading; I finally got around to the April 2015 issue of Food & Wine, where I found a recipe for Ryan Angulo’s (French Louie) “Frenchie Salad.” I ripped it out and saved it. (When I save recipes out of magazines, I often look at them later and think WTF?! Why did I want to make this? This fact becomes germane to the story.)

I chose this salad as a pick for the week’s meals, but I didn’t read the recipe that closely. When I did, as I was about to make the salad, I realized that 1) I hate blue cheese and 2) there was no way I was actually going to take the time (an hour) to pickle mustard seeds—not that I actually had any mustard seeds on hand. (You see? I don’t know what possessed me to keep this recipe.) So I adapted.

Behold, the Sunday Salad with French-ish Dressing:

I kept most of Angulo’s dressing ingredients, but changed pretty much everything about the actual salad part. We don’t have Little Gem lettuce here, and the local hydroponic lettuce at the grocery store looked way better than anything else, so we bought that. I also realized that we had far less bacon than I’d thought we had leftover from the previous day’s breakfast, so I added some hard-boiled eggs to make the salad more filling and meal-like.

Honestly, the dressing tastes great no matter what you put it on, so I am glad that I sometimes make these baffling recipe selections and pick things that seem very unlike me. Even if I do end up taking out half of the ingredients to make my taste buds happier.

Sunday Salad with French-ish Dressing

Adapted from Ryan Angulo, French Louie (as seen in Food & Wine , April 2015)

Mixed greens
Cherry tomatoes
2 to 3 slices bacon per person, diced and fried
2 hard-boiled eggs per person, halved

For the Dressing

4 ounces cherry tomatoes
¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons whole grain Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450°. Toss the tomatoes with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Spread tomatoes on a rimmed baking sheet or in an ovenproof skillet or baking dish. (Doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s large enough for the tomatoes to spread out nicely and can contain the tomato juices.) Roast for about 30 to 45 minutes. The tomatoes should burst and begin to char in spots. (If they don’t all burst, it’s OK; you’re looking for at least two-thirds of them to do so, though.) Add tomatoes and any liquid in the dish to a blender. Add all remaining ingredients, except salt and pepper. Purée until tomatoes are completely liquefied. Salt and pepper to taste.