Caesar salad

All hail Caesar!

... the salad not the emperor.

I love a salad once in a while and this must be one of my favorites! The Caesarsalad. It is so simple yet so tasteful and rich. The original caesarsalad was not named after the great Roman emperor Julius Caesar... No, there once was an Italian chef, who lived in San Diego and worked somewhere in a restaurant in Tijuana. He prepared a salad and named it after himself; Caesar Cardini. Egocentric? Maybe. But genius! Because this salad nowadays is one of the most popular salads and you can find it in loads of different restaurants prepared in different ways. The original salad only consisted of romaine lettuce, croutons, garlic, parmesan, worcestershire sauce and a hard boiled egg. 

This original version sounded a bit boring for me, so in my recipe I add chicken, bacon and a dressing inspired on the other ingredients.
Imagine sitting poolside in the summer sun with a homemade caesar salad and a glass of red wine or a cold beer... Heaven!
This salad is perfect as a lunch, side dish or starter!

Caesar salad my way

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast
• a few slices of bacon
• romaine salad
• 1 egg, raw
• 1 garlic clove
• worcestershire sauce
• lemon or lime
• corn oil or sunflower oil
• mustard, without seeds
• yoghurt
• old bread
• olive oil
• parmesan, not grated
• salt & pepper

Preparation:

Start by cutting your chicken into small pieces and season them with salt and pepper. Bake your bacon until it is crunchy and put aside on a paper towel. Before adding it to the salad in the end, break the slices into smaller pieces.Bake the chicken in some olive oil until it has a nice brown color. Cut the bread into small squares and toast them in a frying pan in some olive oil.

Now take a bowl and a mixer. The dressing we are about to make looks a bit like mayonnaise, the making process is the same. Add the egg yolk to the bowl and squeeze in the garlic clove. add a tablespoon of mustard and the juice of half a lime or lemon. Put in your mixer and start mixing on a low speed. Slowly start adding some corn or sunflower oil while mixing. The mixture will begin to thicken as you add more oil. Once you've achieved the same density as a nice mayonnaise (which is pretty thick), add a tablespoon of yoghurt and a teaspoon of worcestershire sauce. Mix again on low speed until you have a smooth, liquid substance. (hint: you can add some anchovies to this mixture if you like!)

Now take a large salad bowl and add the salad. Now add the chicken and the bacon and pour over some dressing. Add the croutons and finish by grating some parmesan on top. (I use the slice grater to have nice "slices" of parmesan of about 2cm on 2cm)

Isn't this salad gorgeous?!

Enjoy!!!

July 3, 2013