Leslie Bartosh, CEC, AAC, FMP

  Salad with Fried Soft Poached Egg This is an updated, reenactment of a salad I did some years ago.    Topping a salad with a soft poached egg is not new.  Breading that soft poached egg and deep frying it adds a whole other dimension to the idea.  This salad was influenced by what a few chefs were doing with the idea of breaded fried egg on top of salad.  Often times, the egg was soft poached in a pouch of plastic wrap.   Sometimes it had an Asian influence by being marinated for a time period in soy.   Most of the time, the egg was breaded in fine bread crumbs. I never played with the Asian influence idea even though I like it   And I chose to use Panko breadcrumbs because I really like the crunch when they are used on a fried items.   The egg for this salad was poached in the traditional manner.   I like the shape better.   The egg was poached and then shocked in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process.   To fry the egg, it was breaded using a traditional breading s

  Sometimes the best laid plans of men go astray and dinner plans fall apart.   Such is what happened when Friday afternoon chores stretched into Friday night.   Luckily, I had a few items “laying around” that combined to make a nice dinner.   I am tempted to call this salad a “Dagwood” salad.   It is not quite a chef or cobb salad.   It is not really an antipasto.   Though it does share some characteristics with all three. The base for the salad was Kalera  Krunch.   And yes, the Krunch is real with this lettuce.      Other ingredients included thin sliced red onion, sliced sugar snap peas, pepperoncini, kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, and Julienne carrots.   Toppings included sliced: cucumbers, aloha bell pepper, ham and cheese and a few slices of an aging Asian pear.   The apple wood smoked ham was made in house.   The cheese was a 2-year-old extra sharp white cheddar that was house smoked with pecan in January 2021.    I am never quite sure what to say on how old the che

  Smoked chicken confit with red pear on Kalera  Baby Romaine Salad This dish realizes two different goals.   First: I wanted to try the Kalera Baby Romaine lettuce.   I recently found it in a local grocery store. I became aware of Kalera a few months ago when a peer of mine mentioned them to me.   This occurred, in conjunction, with Kalera opening a farm in my general area.   For those who do not know, kalera is a hydroponic, vertical farm.   They control the environment and all aspects of the plants life.   Quite an intriguing operation.   Second: I wanted to serve the smoked chicken thigh confit in a new method.   In the past, I have served the confit on a bed of white beans with potatoes fried in the confit fat.   This dish works perfectly.   I just wanted something different. As I thought about options, a duck confit salad I had a couple of years ago came to mind.   The idea of the confit salad, triggered another memory of serving a duck confit hors d’oeuvres toppe