After my guanciale summer, it’s salads for breakfast till Christmas

Spinach, tomato and goat curd salad, and the results of the great Salt-Twist Poll

Look – no bacon...

Having discovered the best guanciale* in the world during the summer (La Bottega del Carne in Sansepolcro, in case you’re wondering – and with thanks to Felix Forbes for tracking it down), I may have overdone  things a bit and it is not optimum downsizing material: it has glorious levels of fat.  Okay, it is mostly fat – and the most deliciously flavoured fat at that; Italians are excellent at this: they even sell lardo, a cured fat.  No wonder I love the country so much – that gene mutation that makes people love to eat fat, I think it probably takes up 94% of my DNA.  So I am genetically disposed to devour bacon in general, but with this sublime guanciale, my devouring knew no bounds.

But such activity is not without consequences, so currently my breakfasts are bacon, pancetta and guanciale-less.

So for the foreseeable, pigs need have no fear of my breakfast.

*If you haven’t come across guanciale it’s the cured cheek of the pig; like pancetta but with much more fat, and considered by some to be essential to spaghetti carbonara. For more on the sublime carbonara here’s the link to my post on the subject.

Luckily, I am no longer in close proximity to La Bottega del Carne – and even I wouldn’t get on a plane in pursuit of heavenly breakfast,   so I only have the gamut of the Ginger Pig to cope with to be home and dry. It is not a gamut to be sniffed at; their smoked streaky is about the best there is. Please don’t write in with even better ones – at least till after Christmas.

Anyway, a week into my baconless purgatory I have resisted the siren calls of the bearded men at the Ginger Pig– there is always one and sometimes two epic beards on faces there. No, they are not having a competition – I have checked – but the beards are of such length and luxuriousness that I feel they should be lauded in print, and usually it’s the meat that gets all the attention.

Instead, I have resolutely turned my face in the direction of breakfast salads. Also a wonderful goat curd that I get from Neal’s Yard – a teaspoonful or two is sensational on any salad containing tomatoes – and my staggeringly easy gin cured salmon. with caraway and juniper.

I have talked about my thing for breakfast salads in my post about poached eggs which you can read here.  But briefly, I always have some kind of salad with my eggs (there’s always eggs) because it’s such a fantastic combination, it injects into breakfast a massive number of things that are good for you (eat your heart out Coco Pops), and it adds lots of volume. I am very keen on volume.

I often just have a simple tomato salad, but in the absence of bacon – yes, I am going on about it because it hurts – something more was called for.

As always, breakfast salad quantities are approximate; precision may be dangerous  before coffee.

Tomato and Spinach  Salad

• Cherry tomatoes

• Red onion

• Lemon

• Spinach

• Cucumber

• Chilli – optional

• Goat curd – optional but highly recommended

• Salt and pepper

• Olive oil

1. Roughly chop a handful of spinach and put in a bowl.

2. Roughly chop a handful of cherry tomatoes, season, and add to the spinach.

3. Very thinly slice some lemon, cucumber, onion, and chilli – not too much of either. I use a mandolin for everything except the chilli. Add to the bowl.

4. Season well with salt and pepper, a drizzle or two of olive oil, and mix well.

5. Dot a couple of teaspoons of goat curd on top of the salad.   

Diva Notes

Mandolins

My brain may not be capable of precision before coffee, but it seems to manage perfectly well with a mandolin: it’s a brilliant way of thinly slicing things quickly. But only you know if it’s a good idea for you.

If you are leader of the violins in the LSO do not use a mandolin before breakfast. Get your skivvy  to do it (spouse, child, random person off the street).

Goat Curd

If you can’t get it, you could use a loose, creamy goat’s cheese.

The Salt Twist

Thank you to everyone who participated in my ‘How many twists of a salt mill does it take to get 6g of salt’.

Yes, it does sound like a changing-a-lightbulb joke. Answers in the comments section, please.

I will do a fuller post on the subject shortly, but I asked the  question because there are too many doctors and the British Heart Foundation, who instead of telling people to give up ultra-processed-food, they just say cut it down, but then tell them to completely remove salt from their cooking, and the salt cellar from the table.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that you cannot make food taste good without salt,  so our need for salt, and our need for flavour will drive them straight into the arms of the Food Giants.

But the subject got me wondering how much salt I did use in my cooking, so I decided to count how many twists of my salt mill it would take to get 6g – the government recommended amount. Your guesses varied between 3 and 25; my GP guessed 6.

The Result

With the first mill I tried, it took 110 twists to get 6g. It was a mill that ground very finely and uniformly.  I tried my other  salt mills and they gave results of 30, 34, and 70.  
So I realised that even with the coarser grinders, it would be almost impossible to use too much salt without doing yourself a mischief.   And we have all been wildly overestimating how much salt we used in our cooking.

And in other news,  I bought my first pumpkin.

My first pumpkin.