Bacon and Chanterelle Salad

I rarely make salads - just not part of the Indian food ethos, but I do enjoy them immensely when I have them in restaurants. I tried to rectify this for last friday's stay-at-home fancy dinner. I was inspired by the chanterelle salad in Saveur cooks Authentic French, a very lovely cookbook with a to-die-for tarte tatin recipe that I have to try someday.



Chanterelles are a "wild" mushroom that have a chewy meaty texture that goes really well with bacon. I almost regard bacon as the equivalent of ghee, cooking anything in its fat makes it taste better.
I hate iceberg lettuce in salads, I just feel they taste of water and even worse, remind of me all the worst salads I have had the misfortune to consume. Using a good quality mix of greens is key to a salad.
The dressing is a warm vinaigrette flavoured with bacon fat.


Ingredients

chanterelles
bacon
salad greens

olive oil
mustard
shallots


Method


Mushrooms cannot be washed as they get waterlogged and wont brown. So, wipe them gently with a damp kitchen towel. Cut the mushrooms into biggish pieces. Heat butter in a pan and toss the mushrooms in. Season with salt and let the mushroom brown on medium heat. Once they have been sufficiently burnished, remove from the pan and reserve.

For a handful of mushrooms, I used two rashers of bacon. Dice the bacon, a biggish dice, and add to the pan. let them render their fat and brown on medium heat. Once they are done, remove the bacon pieces from the pan and reserve. Pour off most of the bacon fat except a small little bit ( this is not for health concerns, but because you don't want the salad to be dominated by bacon). Reserve this pan as you want to use it to make the dressing.

When ready to serve, heat the mushrooms and the bacon in a separate pan. Mince the shallot very fine. Add the shallots to the bacony pan and heat gently. Add the vinegar and stir vigorously. Remove from the heat. In a small bowl, whisk together the mustard, oil and shallot-vinegar mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the various ingredients till you have the right mix.

Toss the greens with the above dressing and put into serving plates. Mound the warm mushrooms on top, sprinkle with the warm bacon and serve.