Notes

The original caesar salad

According to legend, the original caesar salad was created by American restaurateur Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, at Caesar’s restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, which catered almost exclusively to an American military clientele, but was located in Mexico to avoid America’s prohibition laws at the time.

As the story goes, it was a busy night at the restaurant and supplies were short, so rather than disappointing his customers, Caesar himself jumped into the kitchen and threw together a salad using cos lettuce and coddled eggs, and the rest is history. As with most origin stories, I will eat my hat if that’s actually true (the credit should probably go to an employee of Cardini’s, Livio Santini), but the real story of the caesar salad’s rise to global fame is far more compelling.

Interest in the salad became tied to the global fascination with the Golden Age of Hollywood. During the 1930s, the salad became a favourite of the stars and starlets who visited Tijuana to party, and it soon reached the East Coast to satisfy those chasing a bit of Hollywood glamour. European interest followed through the scandal of Edward VIII’s abdication from the British throne to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson, who was apparently a fan of the salad.

In 1956, when the International Society of Epicures in Paris proclaimed Caesar’s salad “the greatest recipe to originate from the Americas in 50 years”, its legacy was assured.

The caesar salad received another boost from none other than Julia Child. Having dined at the original Caesar’s restaurant as a child, the American food writer and TV pioneer wrote about the salad in her 1975 biography, bringing it to the attention of a new generation, such that we’re still writing about it and eating it 100 years after its invention.

Boiling eggs

Let me apologise in advance because I am about to over-explain the process of boiling an egg and sound a little intense in the process, but I really do think it’s important.

The original caesar salad was made with coddled eggs boiled for about 60 seconds and then stirred into an emulsified dressing. This modern version has boiled eggs added as a separate ingredient, and to get the right texture of white (firm but tender) and yolk (jammy and rich, not grainy) every time, you need to follow a few simple steps.

The process of boiling eggs should be precise, and that means you need to remove as many variables as possible. I buy eggs the same size (large eggs about 60g) and keep them in the fridge so they’re the same temperature every time.

I poke a hole in the base of the egg. I have a little device for doing this but you can use a thick sewing needle instead. Poking a hole is important because every egg has a little air pocket in it, and if you have ever had an egg crack when you put it into hot water it’s because that air pocket is expanding. Poking a hole in the egg allows that air to escape so your eggs will never crack and also avoids the air pocket leaving a concave dent in your boiled egg.

Putting the egg into simmering water holds it at a constant temperature (it won’t crack even if you place it in directly from the fridge because the expanding air will escape through the hole), so then you just need to time it. I think 7 minutes is the perfect time for a caesar salad, but you could go longer or shorter according to your preference. Placing the egg into iced water stops the cooking process, and peeling the egg either under running water or with repeated dipping into the iced water allows water to get under the membrane of the egg so that it doesn’t attach to the shell and tear the white. Follow these steps and you’ll get perfectly shaped, perfectly cooked boiled eggs every time.

Bacon? Anchovies?

The glamour of the original salad owes much to the fact that it was prepared tableside by theatrically stirring coddled eggs and parmesan through whole cos lettuce leaves and seasoning them with lime juice, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. It was intended to be eaten with the hands.

It might surprise you that the original salad contained no bacon or anchovies. But this column isn’t about how to create archaic versions of 100-year-old dishes. It’s about how to make the best versions of those dishes today. Most contemporary versions contain at least bacon, and anchovies are another happy addition.

Rather than using thin rashers of bacon, which I find too dry for just about every purpose, I prefer speck cut from a block into thick lardons. Anchovies emulsified with egg yolk form the backbone of a delicious dressing similar to the coddled eggs of the original, and I like to add soft-boiled eggs as well. For the dressing, I use a mixture of vegetable oil and olive oil to keep the flavour light. Grapeseed is my favourite oil for dressings, but any vegetable oil will be fine.

Croutons

A great caesar salad owes much to its croutons. The original version used slices of baguette toasted with garlic, but if you’ve added speck or bacon to your salad, it makes sense to toast the bread in a mixture of the rendered fat and olive oil. I think the resulting croutons are the star of the dish.

Whole leaves

One area where I think it’s best not to depart from the original recipe is in using whole cos leaves. Leaving the leaves whole gives the salad structure, and even though we’re not likely to be eating our modern version with our hands, that’s still an option. Any large leaves can be split lengthwise to retain the structure of the salad.