Brooklyn's Fatty 'Cue Is Reinventing The Salad

New York City barbecue joint Fatty 'Cue, with locations in Manhattan's West Village and Brooklyn's Williamsburg, is known for its locally and humanely sourced meats that are smoked in-house, sometimes for many days at a time. They combine their flavorful, smoky meats with sweet flavors (like sweet soy or a palm sugar glaze) or something tart (like fermented tofu yogurt). You'll see their Asian influence come into play in their beef brisket, which is served with a rhubarb kimchi, or in the addition of a fish-palm syrup to the pork ribs.

Brooklyn's Fatty 'Cue Is Reinventing the Salad (Slideshow)

But where Fatty 'Cue gets really innovative is with the salads. In the 'Cue Bacon menu offering, they serve huge (about 5 to 6 ounces per salad) slabs of bacon on top of an apple-cucumber salad. The bacon is cured for five days with a spice mix of coriander, lime, sugar, and salt, and then smoked for four to six hours. Then, when the bacon is on the grill, it is brushed with a hot sauce of chiles, lime, garlic, fish sauce, and palm sugar. The salad is a mix of cucumber, ginger, Thai chile, fresh mint, cilantro, fresh coconut, and thinly sliced apple. 

The Pig Ear salad is a small dish of avocado mousse spiked with orange tobiko, sea salt, scallions, and of course, pig ear. Before the dish is made, the pig ear gets smoked overnight and sliced very thinly on a deli slicer.

Click through the slideshow to see a step-by-step process of how these awesome salads are created.