This is the way we first served spinach salad at Ristorante Buonavia—and the way it was served in a lot of other Italian-American restaurants at the time. I love it just as much with sliced, roasted or boiled beets in place of the mushrooms. If you don’t have bacon, or don’t want to use it, make a spinach-and-mushroom salad with an oil-and-vinegar dressing (using about 1/4 cup olive oil to 3 tablespoons of vinegar). With a vegetable peeler, shave 1 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and toss it in at the end.

　　

Ingredients

makes 6 servings

　　3/4 pound baby spinach leaves or tender leaf spinach, cut into 1/2-inch strips

　　6 large white mushrooms, stem ends trimmed, wiped clean and sliced thin (about 2 cups)

　　6 strips thick-sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch strips

　　Salt

　　Freshly ground black pepper

　　3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar

　　2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

　　

Step 1

Wash the spinach and dry it according to the directions on page 67. Toss the spinach and mushrooms in a large serving bowl and set them aside (or refrigerate for up to 6 hours).

　　

Step 2

Just before you’re ready to serve the salad, scatter the bacon over the bottom of a heavy, small skillet. Place the skillet over medium heat and cook, stirring once in a while, until the bacon just starts to get crisp, about 5 minutes. Don’t let the bacon get too crisp or too brown. While the bacon is cooking, season the salad well with salt and pepper. Pour the vinegar into the skillet and bring the liquid in the skillet to a quick boil. Immediately pour the hot dressing over the spinach and toss well. Drizzle the olive oil over the salad and toss to mix. Taste, adding salt, pepper, vinegar, or oil if you like. Serve immediately.

　　From Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich Copyright © 2001 by A La Carte Communications and Tutti a Tavola, LLC. Published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.Buy the full book from Amazon.