My Version of Caesar's Salad

Most people don't know what a Caesar's Salad is anymore. When you order a Caesar's Salad almost anywhere and practically everywhere, you are getting ripped off. You are getting something that should not even be called a Caesar's Salad. Most menus don't even call it by its correct name, which is the possessive "Caesar's Salad" as opposed to the incorrect singular pronoun Caesar Salad. I personally boycott "Caesar Salad" anywhere except my own home.

The creator of Caesar's Salad was an Italian, Caesar Cardini, who was a restaurateur in Tijuana, Mexico in the 1920s. There are other versions of the genesis of the Caesar's Salad, but Julia Child has written that she ate them at Cardini's restaurant when taken there by her parents as a little girl and later sought out Cardini's daughter, Rosa, for the original recipe. Although Rosa was born five years after the salad was created, she saw her father make it many times growing up around the restaurant.

According to the story made famous by Cardini's daughter, supplies in the establishment ran short one July 4th holiday weekend in 1924, when a lot of rich Californians would flood the city for all the things Tijuana offered that San Diego didn't, like booze and gambling because the country was in Prohibition and Las Vegas hadn't been invented yet. Caesar experimented with what he had on hand, and that evening, Caesar's Salad was born.

"Take everything to the table" he said, "and make a ceremony of fixing the salad." Let guests think they're having the specialty of the house." Later it was voted "the greatest recipe to originate from the Americas in fifty years" by the International Society of Epicures in Paris.

So, a lot of restaurants stole the idea and made the traditional Caesar's Salad table-side. But chefs and restaurateurs couldn't help themselves and slowly started changing the recipe. The addition of prepared Dijon Mustard was added to the dressing, which Cardini never used. Then anchovies, which Cardini also never used. Then, the coddled egg was removed by local health code interference. Then, table-side preparation disappeared altogether. That was the end of the Caesar's Salad as Mr. Cardini intended it.

Instead of using only the light green whole inner leaves of a head of Romaine, known as the heart, which was the way Caesar Cardini made the salad, restaurants starting throwing chopped Romaine in a bowl, pouring some bottled crap on it, throwing in some prefabricated croutons and called it a Caesar Salad.

Then, the food companies started retailing the bottled up version of an otherwise freshly made dressing, loading it with preservatives to extend it's shelf life.

Then, the semi-fast food chains started changing the recipe some more, and adding ingredients like grilled chicken or shrimp to the recipe, along with their commercially prepared bottled institutional dressing.

Then, the fast food chains started packaging up a fistful of Romaine Lettuce, plasticized croutons with a portion-control package of pre-made, gook-laden dressing and called it a Caesar Salad.

None of these concoctions even remotely resembles the original version of the true masterpiece, which was really very, very simple.

With deference to Mr. Cardini's original recipe, and at the risk of talking out of both sides of my mouth about bastardizing the original recipe, my version of Caesar's Salad does contain Dijon mustard and anchovies. My rationale for so doing rests in the technical training I received when I was an assistant maître d' at an upscale restaurant in a swank hotel in the early 1970s. I wrote a little about this experience in how I learned to make a number of dishes à la table-side cooking in my recipe Wilted Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing, and this experience, of course, taught me how to make Caesar's Salad as well. The restaurant's chef taught me to use Dijon mustard and smashed anchovies, and so that is what my recipe calls for. I also like a little extra bite, so I have added a tablespoon of garlic infused red wine vinegar and a couple of shakes of Tabasco sauce into my adaptation of the dressing.

Now, just a quick word about anchovies. Don't yield to those that may ask you to leave them out because they have some misguided notion that anchovies don't taste good. In my recipe, you use anchovy paste, or flat anchovy filets that you smash into a paste. Either way, the anchovies are blended into the dressing as a seasoning. Even people who claim to hate anchovies still love this salad. One time, and one time only did I make Caesar's Salad leaving out the anchovies, only because my pantry was devoid of these delicious little fishes at the time. The dressing lost a good deal of its character and was an utter disappointment. I vowed then and there that I would sooner forego making the salad at all than to do so without this key foundation flavor.

Despite innovations to the original, simple recipe, mine is still a freshly made dressing that uses an uncooked egg. Technically, the egg should be coddled in near boiling hot water for a minute to kill any bacteria on the shell that might contaminate the egg when cracked, but I admit I really never do this, and neither have I ever gotten ill.

I personally leave out the croutons because I am on a wheat restricted diet. If you do want croutons, follow the recipe for the original Caesar's Salad, which I also include below out of respect for authenticity and for the creator who started it all over eighty years ago.

Oh, and one more thing. Don't buy that junk they sell in the grocery store and think you're getting Caesar's Salad dressing. You're not. Even the one that's been named after Cardini himself, and with the unmitigated gall to call itself "original," contains crap that Caesar never put in his dressing and I wouldn't put in mine; things like soybean oil, white wine, onion, xanthan gum, molasses, corn syrup, caramel color, sugar and tamarind. How they can get away with false and misleading marketing like that is beyond me.

Ingredients
3 Romaine lettuce hearts
2 anchovy fillets or 1 tbsp anchovy paste
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp garlic flavored red wine vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 shakes Tabasco sauce
1 whole coddled egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (the Kraft "green can" kind)
1/4 cup shredded or shaved Parmesan cheese (anything but the Kraft "green can" kind)
1/2 cup olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

The Recipe
First, submerge the unbroken uncooked egg in near boiling water for one minute, and then place in cold water for five minutes while you begin the salad preparation.

You really should use a wooden salad bowl to make the dressing. The rough texture of the wood is helpful in its preparation. Start by sprinkling a little salt into the bowl. This is more for the abrasive qualities of the salt crystals than for flavor, so don't use much.

Add the minced garlic and the anchovies or anchovy paste to the bowl, and using the back of large serving spoon, crush the garlic and the anchovy together until everything is ground down to a fine paste with no lumps.

Next, add the mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce, and blend this well with the anchovy and garlic paste.

Crack in your coddled egg, and mix vigorously into the dressing. The mustard and the egg will form a loose emulsion, and so you will notice that the egg white and its yolk will blend into the dressing easily. At this point, the dressing should be smooth and well blended, with no lumps or bits of egg white roaming about.

While mixing the dressing vigorously using either the serving spoon or a wire whisk, slowly pour in the olive oil. It, too, will emulsify into the dressing so that the entire mixture is a smooth, creamy consistency.

At this point, check the seasoning. Add freshly cracked black pepper, and adjust for your taste. I almost always find at this point I like a little more Worcestershire sauce or another shake or two of Tabasco. When you have adjusted the seasoning to your liking, put in the Kraft grated Parmesan cheese. Now, I know there are purists out there who just think this is an awful idea. But don't knock it until you have tried it. This just gives the dressing an added "bite" of the Parmesan flavor that I can't do without.

One of the keys to a good Caesar salad is having cold, crisp but very dry hearts of Romaine lettuce. In the "old days," I would bring home a head or two of Romaine lettuce, discarding the outer dark green and more fibrous leaves, reserving the lighter green and white colored heart. I would wash the individual leaves from the Romaine heart well, roll them in paper towels, and let them sit in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes while I made the dressing. That is still a manner of preparation I would recommend.

However, our neighborhood grocery store panders to those looking for convenience, and anymore I can find pre-packaged whole hearts of Romaine. They are already washed and well chilled, so I simply tear them up into a large mixing bowl. Cardini's original recipe kept the leaves intact and he even encouraged his patrons to eat them by hand without cutting the leaves into bite size portions. That's cool if you want to try it, but I never have served my Caesar's Salad that way. Neither do I chop the hearts with a knife, however. I tear them into bite size pieces with my hands.

Combine the leaves with the dressing. Add the croutons at this point if you use them. Dish the salad onto a large plate, and sprinkle the shredded Parmesan cheese on top. Give a turn or two of your pepper grinder if you wish.

Voila!

Now, here is the actual original recipe for the true Caesar's Salad as created by Caesar Cardini, and verified as the quintessential Caesar's Salad by Julia Child:

Ingredients
7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 to 6 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
2 cups croutons, made from firm-textured bread
3 Romaine hearts, using only the light green inner leaves left whole
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Juice from one lemon
1 large egg
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

The Recipe
Smash the garlic cloves and combine with the olive oil and in a small bowl; cover tightly and let stand 30 minutes to 1 hour, or even better overnight. Strain out the garlic bits before use.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Toss croutons with 3 tablespoons garlic oil to coat. Spread in a single layer in a shallow baking pan. Bake about 10 minutes or just until the edges begin to color. Set aside to cool.

Submerse the unbroken egg in water brought just to the boiling point and allow to stand for one minute. Remove and set in cold water for five minutes.

Carefully separate leaves of the Romaine hearts; place in a large salad bowl. Drizzle lettuce with 2 tablespoons garlic oil, salt and pepper; toss well. Add another 2 tablespoons garlic oil, lemon juice, and the Worcestershire; toss gently. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and croutons. Serve on a chilled salad plate and encourage your guests to pick up leaves with their fingers. Serves six Caesar's Salad purists.