Frisee Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette

This post is part of a larger post titled Foodbuzz 24×24: Culinary Tour Around the World – Sous Vide Style. In that post, I created a 3-course dinner showcasing the sous vide technique on a variety of cuisines. This frisee salad was one component in the duck confit salad, the French part of the meal.


I have always wondered how restaurants were able to get such a fragrant dressing flavor that I could never recreate. It wasn’t until I tried out Thomas Keller’s Frisee Salad recipe (as part of a larger recipe for a whole Duck Confit Salad), that I realized the secret ingredient.

Yup, that’s right. Instead of using olive oil, duck fat is mixed with reduced vinegar and sugar to make this fragrant, rich salad dressing.

Frisee works great for this dish because its curly texture is able to hold the dressing really well.

Reduce a 1:10 ratio of sugar:red wine vinegar (by weight) until it is almost dry.

Add duck fat to taste (you can start with approximately the same amount as the amount of sugar you added)

Mix and serve!

Red Wine Vinaigrette
250g red wine vinegar
20g granulated sugar
20g rendered duck fat

frisee leaves

Heat red wine vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan until almost dry (getting near syrupy consistency). Turn off heat and add duck fat. Combine to create a “broken” vinaigrette.

Serve with duck confit, pomme sarladine, and a 5-minute egg for the classic French bistro salad. This is the more humble cousin of Thomas Keller’s fancy version, which involves deep-frying the egg and pan searing the duck.