A French bistro-style salad is possibly one of the best and most satisfying dishes you can pull together is short order. As long as you've got lettuce, eggs, and bacon, plus some dressing ingredients, then you're set. And if not, every corner store or supermarket has those things within easy reach. Bread and wine round out the meal, and if you've got some extra time you can use some of the bread as fresh crouton. Optional but essential.

bistro green (photo by wm. christman)

My version consists of any sort of lettuce (I prefer friseé or Romaine hearts but any greens work, the version seen here used a fancy salad mix from a local store), bacon (see the post before this one about the bacon that I use), and a poached egg. The salad is dressed with a simple mustard-based vinaigrette.

Assembly is simple. Start with cooking the bacon (use lardon or simply dice it up). Then start a shallow pan of water boiling for the egg. While that's going, wash and tear up some lettuce (or just remove it from the bag if you bought a mix) and get it ready to be dressed.

Make your dressing - I make a mix of 2 tablespoons each of red wine vinegar and dijon mustard, and a half cup of peanut oil (olive oil works too). Whisk the first two until blended, then dump in the oil all at once. Whisk well until the dressing emusifies. If it doesn't, then add a bit more mustard until it does. (Olive oil tends to take a bit longer and a bit more mustard to get emulsified.)

Once the bacon is crisp, remove it from the pan but save the drippings. At this point, you can skip to poaching the egg but as I mentioned, if you've got the time, you can put the bacon drippings to good use to make some fresh crouton.

(almost) nothing beats fresh crouton (photo by wm. christman)

Dice up some French bread, cutting off the crusts if you wish - day-old bread works well. Drain about half of the drippings out of the pan, get it back on heat then toss in the bread. Toss/stir until the bread begins to toast and crisp. Season with salt and/or pepper. Scoop the crouton onto a paper towel, let them cool for a minute or two then toss them into the salad just after you dress it.

All that's left is to poach that egg. Adding some vinegar to the boiling water will keep the egg together when you slide it in to cook it. When the egg is done, toss the bacon into the lettuce and then toss with the dressing. If you made crouton, toss them in there as well and mix again. Then turn it out onto a plate and gently place the egg in the center. Now go eat!

This salad plus a hunk of crusty French bread and a glass of whatever wine is hanging around make this a weekly favorite of mine. I can usually get it done in about 20 minutes which leaves plenty of time to actually savor, eat and begin relaxing before starting my evening in earnest.