Caesar salad--an experiment and a recipe

 

Caesar Cardini, the chef behind Caesar salad

This is part of my ongoing campaign to vary our salad menu. To my delight, Jacob, who is gradually broadening his list of acceptable foods, loves Caesar salad. Discovered that one night when Megan and I took cousins Jacob and Ford to Pacific Table. So when I recently came across a new recipe that included toasted bread crumbs instead of croutons, I set it aside to try. Jordan doesn’t much like croutons, and I thought this would be a good substitution. Then I read it again. The dressing called for a whole can of anchovies—enough to turn Jacob off Caesar salad forever. I had already committed to making it for supper, so I decided to revert to a standby—the Caesar recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

Either I don’t know where my copy is or I lost it in the downsizing (that excuse is now five years old and wearing thin). But I couldn’t put my hands on the book. And it appears that the Rombauer family does not put their recipes online. As one family member explained it, they are a small business and can’t afford to share their intellectual property. But I did find someone who put their own adaptation of the Rombauer recipe online, and I went with that.

Sort of a major mistake. Jacob said it burned the roof of this mouth, and I admit it was what I could call a “stout” salad dressing; the next day it was really stout. I think the flavors intensified overnight. To me, the problem was too much lemon and vinegar. But here’s the recipe as I followed it.

½ c. olive oil

1 egg, coddled

1-1.5 tsp Kosher salt

½ tsp. black pepper

Half 2 oz. can anchovy filets, well drained on paper towels

1 tsp Dijon mustard

3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

3 drops (hard to achieve) Worcestershire sauce.

1 whole (small) lemon

Coddling an egg was a whole new experience. Back in the day I used a raw egg and didn’t think twice. To coddle one, you bring a cup of water to a boil (microwave or stove top) and remove from heat. Using a spoon, lower the egg into the water and let it sit five minutes. Once you remove it, with that spoon, it’s best to let it cool a bit. When you can handle it, crack the egg (carefully), spoon contents into other dressing ingredients, and give it a good whir in the food processor.

For the breadcrumbs that got me started on this, I sautéed 1 garlic clove in 3 Tbsp. butter until it softened. Then added 1 cup panko, stirring constantly because it goes from brown to burnt quickly. I let the crumbs cool and topped each serving of salad with crumbs and a generous sprinkle of Parmesan. I did not sprinkle with lemon zest which the original recipe called for.

Do you know the supposedly true history of Caesar salad? It is generally attributed to Caesar Cardini—and  you can still buy the Cardini brand of Caesar dressing in grocery stores--it is good but also a strong dressing. Caesar salad is not for the faint of appetite.

Cardini, Italian by birth, lived in San Diego but opened a hotel and restaurant in Tijuana during Prohibition to avoid the restrictions--and the law. One Fourth of July, the restaurant ran out of food. With limited ingredients, he added a dramatic twist to food service by tossing the salad at the table. To this day, Caesar salad should traditionally be tossed tableside, but it usually isn't. There have been other claims to the invention of this classic salad, principally by some of Cardini's employees, and there is the story of his brother's "aviator salad"--or did Caesar christen his salad "Aviator salad," and it came to be called Caesar in general use? History is once again not precise.

The original salad used lime juice, not lemon, and did not call for anchovies. That slight anchovy flavor supposedly came from Worcestershire sauce. Over time, as the salad became so popular, lemon juice took the place of lime, and anchovies were added--sometimes too many. Some recipes today call for anchovy paste rather than the fish. Another story is that original the romaine leaves were served whole, with a dab of dressing on the tip of each one. The dish was meant to be finger food, and I still eat it that way at Pacific Table in Fort Worth, where they serve a delicious Caesar on whole romaine leaves. But it's hard to reconcile the idea of finger food with the image of Caesar tossing the salad tableside.

You can find countless recipes online that are billed at the "original" Caesar Cardini recipe. Mostly they are variations of the above--some use vinegar, some use lemon, several use both. But basically it's lemon, olive oil, egg, and croutons. I'll stick with the Rombauer version but another time I’ll reduce the vinegar to 1 Tbsp., omit the Worcestershire and the mustard. Or eat my Caesar at Pacific Table. 

So there are some choices: modify the recipe to suit your taste, try Cardini's bottled dressing, or eat at Pacific Table.