Poke Sallet with Bacon and Eggs
Foraged pokeweed boiled three times, then hit the skillet with bacon and scrambled eggs.
- calories
- 330
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 94
- protein
- 16 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 30 min
- cook
- 7 min
- total time
- 37 min
- water
- 3000 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Poke salad greens | 1 lb | young plants only, before they flower; yields about 2 cups boiled and squeezed |
|---|---|---|
| Sliced bacon | 4 oz | |
| Bacon grease | 4 tbsp | whatever renders out of the bacon, plus a spoonful from the jar if it comes up short |
| Eggs | 4 to 6 large | |
| Kosher salt and ground black pepper | to taste | |
| Hot sauce or hot pepper vinegar | to taste |
Method
- Harvest only young pokeweed, stems and leaves, before any flowers appear. Older plants get peeled and the leaves and skin thrown out. This step is not optional; raw and undercooked pokeweed will make you sick.
- Get a big pot of water boiling on the fire and keep a second pot of water heating alongside it for refills.
- Drop the greens in the boiling water, cover, and boil 2 to 3 minutes. Pour that water off well away from camp, refill with the hot water you have going, and repeat. Three boils in three changes of water, total.
- Dump the greens into a strainer or a clean bandana and squeeze out every bit of water you can. Wet greens will spit fat all over you in the next step.
- Set a cast iron skillet on the grate. Cook the bacon until the fat renders and the edges crisp. Leave the fat in the pan.
- Add the squeezed greens to the bacon and fat. Stir a couple of minutes until they are hot through and coated.
- Push everything to one side. Crack the eggs into the bare half, break the yolks, and scramble them there. Do not fold them into the greens until they are fully set.
- Combine, salt and pepper it, and pass the hot sauce.
This is a foraged breakfast, which means the real recipe is the prep. Pokeweed is toxic raw, and the toxins concentrate in the skin and roots. Three separate boils in three separate changes of water is the traditional fix and it works, but only on young plants that have not flowered yet. If you are not certain what you picked, do not cook it.
Everything after the boiling is simple. Bacon fat is the seasoning and the cooking medium both, since boiled greens come out bland and waterlogged by design. Squeezing them dry matters more than it sounds like it should: water in the pan means splattering fat and steamed greens instead of fried ones. The eggs cook on their own half of the skillet so they set properly rather than turning the whole thing into a wet scramble. Hot pepper vinegar at the end is what most people who grew up on this remember about it.
Packing
Bacon and eggs ride in the cooler. Carry a jar of bacon grease in case the bacon runs lean. The greens come from the ground, so bring a knife and a bag, not groceries.
Variations
- A drizzle of sorghum molasses instead of hot sauce goes the sweet direction.
- Peeled poke shoots from taller plants cook faster and taste better than the leaves.
- If there is no pokeweed to be found, boiled dandelion or lamb's quarter greens run the same play.
https://foragerchef.com/poke-sallet-recipe-polk-salad-with-eggs