Hot Bacon Dressing

Makes 4 servings

6 slices of streaky bacon
1 egg
1 teaspoon flour
pinch pepper
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup cider vinegar
½ cup water

Method

Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry in a heavy frying pan. Turn the heat down to low after the bacon has browned. Beat together the egg, flour, and pepper; mix together the sugar, vinegar, and water and add to the egg batter. Cook it in the frying pan with the bacon and all its grease until it begins to thicken. Pour over a pound of fresh greens.

Notes

Hot bacon dressing is a Pennsylvania German speciality (you can tell by the amount of grease it includes), always used on fresh dandelion in spring and on lettuce the rest of the year. The former is usually topped with chopped onion and diced hard-cooked egg.

Dandelion is very much peasant food, eaten only in rural communities or isolated ethnic conclaves. In some Pennsylvania German areas, it is still used for salad greens and wines, but British use seems to have faded (see Davies for a recipe for non-alcoholic dandelion beer, however). As it's available locally for only three weeks of the year, we often use spinach, another vitamin-rich spring green, in its stead.

First served: Beltane 1993
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Last modified: © November 2001