Caesar Salad
The sort of posh caesar salad one normally sees on restaurant menus is surprisingly simple to make at home, and you can add all sorts of extra ingredients to suit your taste! The trick is to dress the lettuce at the last minute to prevent it becoming soggy. Cos lettuce is also very easy to grow either in the ground or in pots, and if you grow one with reddish tinted leaves, they are less palatable to slugs. Quantities will depend on how many you are feeding, but this will feed 2 as a light main course with some crusty bread.
- Cos lettuce
- 3 slices white bread cut in cubes
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic roughly cut open
- 1 tin anchovies in olive oil
- Parmesan shavings
- Caesar salad dressing (see below)
Optional toppings: asparagus, mange tout or fresh green/French beans cooked and refreshed in cold water, cooked chicken roughly shredded, and/or poached eggs.
Heat the oil in a pan, add the garlic and fry gently for a couple of minutes to flavour the oil. Remove garlic and discard, then add bread cubes to the oil and fry, tossing frequently until fried and golden, then set aside. When ready to serve, toss the lettuce thoroughly in the dressing, arrange attractively in a salad bowl or on individual plates, and top with anchovies, bread croutons and parmesan (the best way of shaving it is using one of those modern Y-shaped potato peelers), and the toppings of your choice.
You can buy the dressing, but if you have one of those mouli-type food purree-ers with its original tall mixing container, the dressing is incredibly quick to make. Simply put 2 large egg yolks, 2 tsp dijon mustard, 1 clove of garlic, 2 tsp lea’n’perrins, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, squeeze of lemon juice, seasoning, and 175ml rapeseed oil (also sold as pure vegetable oil) in the container, put the mouli right down to the bottom, switch in on and slowly draw it up to the top of the mixture. If you have a magimix, put in all the ingredients except the oil, switch on, then slowly pour in the oil in a steady stream - instant creamy dressing, but please note that it does contain raw egg!