Bacon Potato Salad Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 20 minutes (plus cooling time for potatoes)
Cooking time: 2 hours concurrently
Serves: 6-8 as a side
Ingredients Needed
For garlic confit
- 55g/2ozs garlic cloves (around 12 garlic cloves)
- 55ml/2flozs extra virgin olive oil (enough to submerge the garlic)
For Salad
- 1kg/2.2lbs baby potatoes
- 2 tablespoons salt for boiling potatoes
- 250g/8.8ozs streaky bacon
- 2 cups/60g/2ozs baby spinach
- 25g/1oz green onions
- 80g/2.8ozs shaved parmesan
- 12 confit garlic cloves from above
For Dressing
- 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 4 tablespoons garlic olive oil from above
- Salt and pepper for seasoning
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 CONFIT - First make the garlic confit. Preheat oven to 120C/240F fan forced or 140/280F conventional. Place garlic in a small oven proof dish or small saucepan and cover with oil. Place foil or the lid on top and bake for 2 hours or until soft and light golden in colour. Cool until needed.
Step 2 POTATOES - While the garlic is confiting place a pot of water onto boil and add the salt to the water. Place potatoes in the water and cook for 10-20 minutes or until tender but not soft or mushy (some baby potatoes are really tiny while these were on the larger side). Cool completely. Potatoes can be boiled 1-2 days ahead of time. Cut the potatoes into bite sized pieces and place in a bowl.
Step 3 BACON - While the potatoes are boiling, finely dice the bacon and fry until golden and crispy (around 5 minutes on medium heat). Drain the bacon fat reserving the bacon bits.
Step 4 MIX - Add the bacon to the potatoes along with the baby spinach, green onions, confit garlic cloves and most of the shaved parmesan (reserve a little to sprinkle on top).
Step 5 DRESSING - Whisk the mayonnaise with the cooled garlic oil and drizzle over the salad gently tossing it. Season with salt and black pepper and add extra parmesan on top and taste for seasoning.
Substitution notes and ingredients:
You can use any type of potato that is good for boiling. You want to look for waxy potatoes as they will hold their shape. Starchy potatoes (like Russetts) may disintegrate when boiling. I like using chat or baby potatoes or kipflers as they are waxy.
Streaky bacon can be subbed with middle bacon if you want a lower fat alternative.
Mayonnaise can be switched out for aioli.
Shaved parmesan can be subbed with grated parmesan, grana padano or pecorino cheese.
I freeze leftover fat like this bacon fat to use in place of oils in recipes like bread or roasted vegetables.
Personal Note
As soon as I tried this bacon and potato salad at the restaurant I knew that I had to make it again because I enjoyed it so much. Everything came together at the same time to make this. I had a bag of baby spinach that I forgot to use up and I had some bacon in the freezer that was edging close to its expiry date.
I went to the greengrocers for some potatoes and then saw the display of things for quick sale. I cannot resist that little section of goodies - I've bought many bargains like a 500g/1.1lbs box of the sweetest raspberries which Mr NQN and I devoured on the same day. Today I found a big box of peeled garlic cloves. I can never be without garlic so even though it was about 3 month's worth of supply and there was no way I could use it all, I was Dear Reader, blinded by the bargain.
But then when I got home I remembered one small detail of the dish that we ate and that was garlic confit! I have added a lot of garlic in my recipe; 12 cloves of garlic does seem a lot but when it is in this salad, it is so mild and sweet that you'd be convinced that it had sugar or honey in the dressing or something.
Now I've just got a couple of hundred garlic cloves to go! Any suggestions?
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever stop at the quick sale displays to buy things? Have you ever tried confiting garlic?