Why You Should Intentionally Boil Salad (With Bacon Vinaigrette)
Sluggish lettuce is generally considered the enemy of tasty salads, but deliberately hanging it up (or “killing” it, as it is sometimes called) with bacon fat is fine.
This Appalachian technique seems a little wrong, but it tastes very good. The fat of the hot bacon makes up most of the “dressing” that coat the once crunchy leaves with the salty, greasy kindness and kill them so tenderly. There are many ways to cure this (check out the Food52 option below), but the most important part is hot fat lovingly applied to the leaves. From there, you can add vinegar, hot sauce, or even an egg. Go crazy. (Just make sure you don’t forget the real bacon that your grease came from. That would be tragic.)
Do Right With Your Salad: Kill It | Food52