Saturday, September 24, 2011

Salad with a soul

There are many reasons why I call Caesar salad one of my all time favourite meals (yes  I, consider Caesar salad a meal in itself) a salad with a soul and a very pure one at that!  Paired with a good wine like Sangiovese it can turn a very casual lunch with friends or family into an exotic one. While choosing a sangiovese grape wine you can go through an array of Italian wines (it is the most widely grown grape variety in Italy) and decide on your favourite. Am still going through the process of deciding my favourite!  Contrary to the populay belief that the salad has been named after Julius Caesar, this popular dish was originally created in 1924 by Italian chef Caesar Cardini at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico and was prepared and served right at the table.
Some well-known restaurants have a live tossing and whipping  for the salad on their salad counters. For those who’ve not experienced “the salad show”, you don’t know what you’ve missed. It is an opportunity for a chef to show off his stuff, mixing and whisking to the delight of the patrons.
Generally, a Caesar salad contains romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, and black pepper. Now it has multiple variations including different kinds of lettuce, grilled chicken, meat, shellfish, fish, anchovies, bacon, etc.  Out of all the Caesars (pun intended) I’ve had, the best was at the Big Chill cafe´ at khan market. This version goes with iceberg lettuce as opposed to romaine, has a delectable dressing with a hint of fresh lemon juice and coddled eggs, croutons have a slight hint of butter and garlic ( they stole my heart) and chunks of chicken or bacon as per your choice.  What I totally fell for was generous shavings for parmesan on the top.
All you need to know while getting together your salad at home is the dressing, once that is in place you can experiment and be adventurous about the ingredients. Remember a good cook has to think out of the box and many a times give up on tradition.  
So here goes my version of the dressing:
·         One cup of mayo ( I prefer low fat one with eggs)
·         One and half cup of hung curd (again the low fat variety)
·         One cup of olive oil (virgin)
·         Mustard (the original recipe demands dijon, I use anything at hand J )
·         Few cloves of garlic (hear my Indian cooking instincts take over and I go a little over board)

Whip up all this together and you can even store in a bottle.

So get your salad bowls and spoon out and give this soulful salad a try!



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