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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.

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

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.
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil into a pan and fry the bread until golden in order to get our homemade croutons.
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.
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.
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

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Categorías Main courses, Recipes

Noodles with Alfredo sauce: my way

13 Jul

I usually prepare pasta with a delicious sauce called Alfredo. But mine it´s an own version as rich as the sauce was created by the Italian Alfredo Di Lelio. This was elaborated by the restaurateur on his mother´s restaurant located on it used to be Piazza Rosa, in Rome, in 1908. Nowadays, their descendants still preparing it on «Il Vero Alfredo», although they´ve moved to another site in the Italian capital. Essentially, it is a very creamy sauce, made it with butter and Parmesan cheese, and these ingredients make possible season it in many ways.

The present recipe doesn´t use butter, but I can assure is not necessary. I´ve used bacon that I´ve fried with a little bit olive oil. The fat that usually releases the bacon is enough for stir-fry the chive and the cornflour. Once more I decided to cook noodles, because is between pastas one of my favorites, but you can prepare yours. Is always the sauce the authentic main character. Let’s go into the kitchen.

Todos los derechos reservados por Tras La Receta

Ingredients

150 gr bacon finally cut
150 gr mushrooms
1 chive
2 garlic cloves
1 cup cream + 1/4 cup milk
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Maizena corn flour
80 gr grated Parmesan cheese
1 pinch ground nutmeg
black pepper
1 tsp finally chopped fresh peppermint
salt

How to prepare Alfredo Sauce: my way

Fry the bacon with 1 tbsp of olive oil until they browned. Add more olive oil if it were necessary and add the garlic, finally laminated, and the chive. Put salt to taste, sauté for a few minutes and later add the Maizena and stir.
Incorporate the laminated mushrooms, add salt, sauté a couple of minutes and then add the cream and milk. Season it with ground nutmeg, black pepper and check the salt.
Let it cooking down-middle heat until the sauce have thickened. Add the half of the cheese before finish cooking.
Once it has thickened incorporate the pasta, previously cooked in plenty of salty water and very well drained.
Serve immediately and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese and the chopped peppermint.

This is another way, easy and delicious, to prepare pasta. Whatever pasta you prefer, put a peppermint twig or a bay leaf into the water you cook the pasta and you will see such a great result. If you want to read more Italians recipes click here.

Etiquetas: Alfredo pasta, Alfredo sauce, bacon, Italian recipe, olive oil, parmesan cheese

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Categorías Uncategorized

Cherries Salmorejo

11 Jul

If you liked Cordovan Salmorejo, then you´ll love this cherries salmorejo, whose recipe I came across surfing Internet. At this time, the recipe for gourmets is presented by Directo al Paladar. All the credit is for them. Perhaps, I hasn´t got the spectacular color of the original recipe (you´ll check this if you click the previous link) but the flavor is gorgeous, an amazing explosion for our taste.

Ingredients:

650 gr red ripe tomatoes
350 gr cherries
200 gr bread (day before)
1 garlic clove (I prefer just 1/2 one)
150 ml (3/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil
water to scald the tomatoes
salt

How to prepare Cherries Salmorejo

Scald the tomatoes and leaves them ready to use. Click here and you´ll be able to see how easily we can do it.
Remove the bone of every cherry. You can do it with a special tool or you can try with your own hands (it´ll be very easy if you use ripe cherries).
Put the bread, the tomatoes, the cherries, the olive oil, the garlic and the salt into a container or into a blender vase. Blend as well as be possible. It won´t be necessary pass it through a Chinese strainer, but you can do it if you want.
Leave the Cherries Salmorejo inside the fridge while you prepare a hard-boiled egg.

Just as we can do it with Cordovan Salmorejo, take it as an appetizer, as a menu starter or even as a light dinner substitute. Serve cold and garnish with diced hard-boiled egg and diced serrano ham.

Yummy, yummy!!

Etiquetas: cherries, cherries salmorejo, hard-boiled egg, olive oil, salmorejo recipe, serrano ham, tomatoes

Comentarios 2 comentarios
Categorías Recipes, Starters, Appetizers

Salmorejo: Cordovan recipe

10 Jul

Last summer I made my first Cordovan Salmorejo (Salmorejo cordobés) thanks to the great explanation I found at Javirecetas website. I loved that simple but delicious dish that hereinafter appeased hot, thirst and hunger. This season, as soon as barely heat was felt, I went to buy some good red tomatoes in order to prepare the first Salmorejo of the summer. Now, pear tomatoes and tomatoes branch are in their very best moment.

The branch tomatoes are my favorites to prepare Salmorejo. I leave the pear tomatoes for our Andalusian breakfasts that we have every weekend, summer or winter, no matter which season be. The Cordovian Salmorejo is a very humble dish. It used to be prepared before Christopher Columbus brings tomatoes here from the New World. Because of this reason, before that, the Salmorejo used to be made just with vinegar, bread, oil and garlic, all perfectly crushed on a mortar. It was never on a court cook book. It was prepared and eaten by poor people and countryside people.

There are two crucial moments for Salmorejo as we know it today. When tomato is introduced and the Salmorejo takes the red color (before that it´s used to be a white cream or soup), and a second moment it was when the electric blender was invented. It replaced the anterior primitive process. Historical references claim that Romans and Arabians, each of them, made and consumed the white primitive Salmorejo, hot or cold. Today the identified recipe as Cordovan Salmorejo is a little bit different, but tasty, fresh and extended for all the Spanish geography.

Ingredients to prepare Salmorejo Cordobés (Javi´s recipe for 2-4 persons)

500 gr red ripe tomatoes
100 gr bread (day before)
1 garlic clove (I prefer just 1/2 one)
100 ml (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil
water to scald the tomatoes
salt

How to prepare Cordovan Salmorejo

Scald the tomatoes and leave them ready to use. Click here and you´ll be able to see how easily we can do it.
Put the bread, the tomatoes, the olive oil, the garlic and the salt into a container or into a blender vase. Blend as well as be possible. It won´t be necessary pass it through a Chinese strainer, but you can do it if you want.
Leave the Salmorejo inside the fridge while you prepare a hard-boiled egg.

Take it as an appetizer, as a menu starter or even as a light dinner substitute. Serve cold and garnish with diced hard-boiled egg and diced serrano ham.

Yummy, yummy!!