Wilted Spinach Salad with Shrimp, Avocado and Olives Recipe
Wilted Spinach Salad with Shrimp, Avocado and Olives

By David Latt

Everyone has an all-purpose recipe that can be modified in clever ways by changing a few key ingredients. For my mother, it was the casserole. For me it's usually pasta, but on those nights when my wife wants to "go green" I turn to an old stand-by: a wilted spinach salad.

Versatile spinach works cold in a salad or heated by sauteing or boiling. A hot dressing brings spinach to a middle ground: mostly raw with some leaves wilted from the heat of the dressing. Sauteing the dressing allows for a great variety of ingredients: Italian sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, shrimp, bacon, chicken, duck, chicken livers or just other vegetables. As far as I can tell, just about any pizza topping would work on a wilted spinach salad, except maybe pineapple.

Wilted Spinach Salad with Shrimp, Avocado and Olives Recipe

Makes 4 servings.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

1 large bunch spinach, the root ends trimmed and discarded, thoroughly washed to remove the grit

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled, thinly sliced

2 slices bacon, finely chopped (optional)

6 mushrooms (brown or shiitake), washed, thinly sliced

1 carrot, peeled, cut into rounds 1/4" thick

2 shallots, peeled, cut into thin rounds

12 shrimp, medium sized, washed, deveined, sliced in half (optional)

12 olives (oil cured black, green split or Castelvetrano green), pitted, quartered

1 small avocado, peeled, roughly chopped

1/4 cup croutons, preferably homemade

2 tablespoons feta, crumbled (optional)

4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Sea salt and pepper

Remove the stems from the spinach. Put the leaves into a large salad bowl. Finely chop the stems. To make the hot dressing put 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a saute pan on a medium flame and lightly brown the spinach stems, garlic, bacon, mushrooms, carrot rounds and shallots. Remove from heat and set aside. In a small saucepan, reduce the balsamic vinegar to 1 tablespoon. In a separate saute pan drizzled with olive oil, cook the shrimps until pink, about 2 minutes, then set aside.

When you're just about to serve the salad, reheat the dressing on a medium flame. Add the rest of the olive oil, olives and avocado.

Using a rubber spatula pour the hot dressing over the spinach leaves. Drizzle with the reduced balsamic vinegar. Top with the shrimp, croutons and feta (if using). Taste and adjust the seasoning with sea salt and black pepper.

Variations

-- The hot dressing can be kept vegetarian by using olive oil, shallots and garlic. Most vegetables can be added to the saute: zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, English peas, sugar snap peas, broccoli or tomatoes. Try tofu or vegetarian patties as well.

-- For a riff on a chef salad, in the dressing saute baked ham and turkey breast with shallots; add cheese (cheddar or Swiss) and chopped tomatoes when you toss the salad.

-- Borrowing from the classic frisee salad, use bacon or lardoons crisped in the saute, topping the salad with a fried egg. A variation on a variation: Instead of a fried egg, use a hard boiled egg, sliced or chopped.

-- Saute 1/4" rounds of Italian sausage with slices of red pepper, onion and garlic to make a wilted salad version of a sausage hero.

-- Add grilled or sauteed chicken livers with mushrooms, onions, and lots of garlic.

-- Add several anchovies and a dusting of pepper flakes to the onion-garlic saute.

-- For the meat use slices of roast duck or chicken (dark meat, preferably, since it has more flavor); put shiitake mushrooms in the saute.

David Latt is an Emmy-award winning television producer who turns to cooking to alleviate stress. His experiences with food and his favorite recipes can be found on his blog Men Who Like To Cook. One for the Table is Amy Ephron's online magazine that specializes in food, politics, and love.

 

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