Our friend Tony Conte was making these a number of years ago. He diced ginger and then fried it into croutons, starting them in cold oil. We remembered this when we were fortunate enough to have a bounty of bacon fat and were looking at the traditional frisee au lardon salad and wanted a bright and crispy element. Tony's ginger croutons were married with our bacon fat and the result was a smoky, meaty, spicy crouton, which cut through the rich components of the salad and gave us the luxury of substituting these delicious gingery bites for the traditional bacon lardons.
