This is the salad I love to serve in the winter months. It reminds me of the year I lived in Paris and would sneak into cozy crowded bistros for lunch. Often, I would order a simple frisée salad with crisp bacon cubes and a perfectly poached egg sitting on top -- a wonderful combination of flavors. I've also enjoyed my share of bistro-style salads with fresh goat cheese tucked into seasonal greens along with freshly toasted garlic croutons.
In a sense, I have melded all of those delicious salads into this classic crowd-pleaser with a crispy round of warm goat cheese atop a mix of wild-looking frisée greens and mahogany bacon pieces, cloaked with a warm shallot and red wine dressing.
Sometimes mistaken for escarole that has broad leaves, frisée is really curly endive with frilly, slightly peppery leaves. This member of the chicory family -- which also includes radicchio, Treviso and Belgian endive -- has white roots and green, spiky leaves.
This is the salad to serve if you are looking for one with a little oomph. Serve this as a main course for lunch or a first course for dinner. You can mix and match as much as you like. Use spinach instead of frisée, or crisp up some pancetta slices instead of bacon, or change the goat cheese to shards of nutty sweet Parmesan Reggiano. You can't go wrong with this warm salad of complementary flavors.
