Caesar salad: my own version, easy recipe

Since many years ago, Caesar Salad is not longer a local star dish and become international well-known recipe. It is said that it was created by an Italian man resident in Mexico, who gave the name in honor to Caesar Cardini, the restaurant´s owner where he used to work. Alex Cardini, same Caesar´s surname, maybe his brother, later traveled to Tijuana, in order to participate in a gastronomy contest and just there he won a prize with his salad, whose little secret was its dressing. They relate it was popular first in California and then it was extended; the truth is that today it has been completely revealed.

Another story claim that the recipe was created by Caesar Cardini himself, who operated restaurants in Mexico and United States as well. There was an occasion when a group of American pilots came to the restaurant asking for a simple salad; the problem was that, without tomatoes or other typical ingredients, Caesar took his mother´s recipe for scarcity times and at the end it was actually a success: the Aviator´s Salad.

Moreover, according to some memories of his daughter Rosa, died in 2003, the recipe was born on July 4th, 1924, when rush depleted the kitchen´s supplies and her father made it with what he had. Also, a number of Cardini’s staff have said that they invented the dish and to complete all the folklore about the Caesar Salad, the chef Julia Child, very well-known in America for having introduced the French cuisine to the public, said that she had eaten a Caesar salad at Cardini’s restaurant when she was a child in the 1920s. The earliest contemporary documentation of Caesar Salad is from a 1946, Los Angeles restaurant menu, twenty years after the 1924 origin stated by the Cardinis. So, no matter which the origin was, the certainty is that we can enjoy it today.

The salad served in the restaurants in those years, no matter its origin, contained Roman lettuce, coddled eggs, croutons, old cheese, vinegar, sugar, olive oil, some English sauce drops and lemon juice. Today I want to share an own version, more or less, with the original flavor of the Caesar Salad dressing.

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Ingredients to prepare Caesar Salad (2 persons)

(version with 2 kinds of tomatoes and crabsticks)

 1 chicken breast 
 2 crustless bread slices 
 1 Roman lettuce 
 mix Batavia lettuce 
 50 gr old Parmesan cheese flakes (or your favorite old cheese) 
 1/2 julienne chive 
 4 diced crabsticks 
 1 red tomato cut into half moons 
 4 cherry tomatoes cut into 4 parts 
1/2 sweet corn can 
2 little anchovy fillets 
1/2 cup wine 
2 tbsp olive oil 
black pepper 
salt

Caesar Salad dressing:

70 ml olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 large egg

1/2 garlic clove

1 tbsp mustard

1 tbsp English sauce Lea & Perrins (optional)

2 little anchovy fillets

How to prepare Caesar Salad

1. Cut the chicken breast into little strips. Seasoning with salt and black pepper to taste, add the wine, cover them and keep the recipient into the fridge whereas we prepare the other ingredients.
2. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil into a pan and fry the bread until golden in order to get our homemade croutons.
3. Into the same pan heat more olive if it is necessary and cook the chicken breast strips (keep aside the wine). When the strips are cook incorporate the wine we put aside, up the heat, leave the wine evaporates, stir and you´ll see how the chicken golden. Take them and put aside before they drying or they burn. Now let´s prepare the dressing.
4. Put all the correspondent ingredients of the Caesar dressing into a glass beater. Do not add salt because the anchovies already have. With the beater arm firm on the glass bottom, start beating and do not move the arm until it has emulsified, then you can stir and to finish integrating all the ingredients. The result is a fairly light sauce without becoming liquid. If you prefer it thicker, add an egg yolk (they´ll be two then) and you´ll get a kind of mayonnaise with all Caesar´s dressing flavor. Keep it aside until the Salad is serve.
5. Into a salad bowl put the lettuce, the tomatoes, the crabsticks, the corn, the chive and one of the anchovy fillets finely cut (keep the other one to decorate). Mix all very well. Serve two individual dishes, add the chicken and cheese. Incorporate some dressing, add the croutons in the very last moment in order to do not wheat the bread and they still crunchy. Fill a sauceboat with extra sauce and put it on the dining table.

Ready! Enjoy this salad and add it your favorite ingredient. While I prepare another fresh summer salad, stay around here and take a look to this Cold beet soup.

Etiquetas: anchovies, Caesar salad, chicken breast, croutons, dressing, olive oil, parmesan cheese, salad