Black Pudding, Bacon, Poached Egg and Avocado Salad with Mustard Dressing

Mrs Ribeye and I have not long woken up after an excellent evening. Our good friends Ophelia and Kumar came over last night for dinner and we managed to put the whole world to rights in just five hours of rapidly escalating drunken chattering. My poor neighbours.

I made this salad as a starter, Beef Rendang with Roti as a main course, with Apple Pie for dessert. What a blow out.

Having checked the rubbish bin this morning, I noted that we had also consumed four bottles of wine and a fairly large chunk of a bottle of Scotch. Ouch! Order was restored to my constitution this morning after a hearty breakfast, a black coffee and about four pints of water.

It is now mid-afternoon, and the only regret I now face is the mountain of washing up that Mrs Ribeye and I left, and which has not magically disappeared overnight - despite my wishful nocturnal fantasies to the contrary.

Anyway, this salad was, if I do say so myself, utterly fabulous. The black pudding mixed with the soft poached egg complemented the chewy bacon lardons, smooth avocado, slightly bitter salad leaves and mustardy dressing absolutely perfectly.

Cost-wise, the dish looks and tastes so luxurious, but is, in actual fact, very cheap to produce: £1.50 per serving is all.

Right, now for a half-hearted stab at those bloody kitchen chores.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

4 thick slices of black pudding
200g unsmoked bacon lardons
1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of cider vinegar
150g mixed frisee and radicchio leaves
1 avocado, cut into large chunks
50ml olive oil
25ml red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Pinches of salt and pepper

In a large frying pan, fry the black pudding and the lardons in the sunflower oil until crisp (5 minutes approx) and set aside in a warm oven. Clean out the frying pan and fill it with water and the teaspoon of cider vinegar. Bring to the boil and then turn off the heat. Crack the eggs into the water in separate areas of the pan and leave for four minutes to gently poach. In the meantime, arrange the salad leaves around the edge of four plates. Place a slice of black pudding in the centre of each plate and top with a poached egg. Scatter the bacon lardons and the avocado chunks around the leaves. In a bowl, mix the olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard and seasoning, and then sprinkle the dressing onto the salad leaves. Serve immediately.