Caesar Salad
Anyone who cooks has a handful of recipes handed down from their mother, their grandmother, an aunt. I can proudly say that it is my mother who taught me to cook. More importantly still, she didn’t just teach me how to cook but what to cook – what to eat. I am pretty sure she said “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” long before Michael Pollan did. In my younger years I remember her sending me out to the garden to collect the evening’s herbs or sticking a sauce in my mouth off the stove to ask what flavors I tasted. “Salty” didn’t cut it.
Through my twenties I set to work experimenting with the old favorites she used to make and trying to haphazardly recreate them in whatever kitchen I could make use of that year as I bounced from state to state, university to university. During this time, I also developed a culinary style of my own, favoring one pot meals over her more comprehensive family-style table setting, and foreign flavors like curries, Georgian, Turkish, and Far East soups. Now, returning to my hometown is a joy because we split the cooking. One night I make something exotic, the next night she makes the one thing that is best in Florida – fresh fish (baked, grilled, with sauces, with salsas, on salads, any which way).
This Caesar Dressing, though, will always have a special place in my heart. It is the best Caesar dressing, and at one time during my childhood, we had it several times a week, but most importantly on Sundays. During my senior year of high school, my parents indulged a teenage ritual that came to be known as Hot Tub Sundays. There were three of us total, the other two, fellow thespians, and any additional people that wandered in to join any particular Sunday evening collection. We would sit in the hot tub and jump off the large rock statues into the pool while mom made “mocktails” and dad tried to prod us into playing poker with the card deck he had personally laminated (things only retired people do). The only problem was, if you made so much as a ripple in the water surface, the cards sank to the bottom.
After the ritualistic soak, the dinner bell rang, calling us all to a buffet indoors of dad’s cheeseburgers, mom’s parmesan red potatoes (skillet-style, in the oven), and mom’s Caesar salad. My friends referred to this as “salad with the Caesar dressing” and the one time it was substituted for a more traditional salad with vinaigrette, the objections were so vehement it became apparent this Sunday evening event required some modicum of culinary consistency. So here we have it. The Salad with the Caesar dressing recipe. Today, I prefer my Caesar salads with avocado, or sometimes with chicken. Red onions, tomatoes, and hard boiled eggs are also welcome additions. So feel free to beef this up or tone it down depending on if it is your main course or just your side salad. But that dressing… you’ll never buy another jar of Marie’s. I promise.
what you need
1 tablespoon unsweetened Greek yogurt (mom uses mayonnaise)
1 small clove of garlic
2/3 cup grated parmesan reggiano cheese
1 tablespoon good olive oil (if you don’t know what constitutes “good” olive oil, check out the notes at the bottom of the Essential Bolognese Sauce post)
3/4 tablespoon anchovy paste (do not skip this!)
Salt and black pepper to taste; dash of cayenne if desired
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
1-2 tablespoons nut milk or whole milk, as required
1 hefty squeeze lemon juice
how to make it
Combine all ingredients in small blender and combine until smooth. Add the milk little by little until the mixture has enough liquid to mix.
Note that if your small blender is strong enough, you likely won’t need to pre-mince the garlic clove at all.
To serve, toss dressing with: romaine lettuce (grilled or raw), thinly sliced red onions, chunked chicken (grilled or baked), diced hard boiled egg, a little extra lemon juice, and top with a little extra parmesan cheese.
Some of you may be wondering how this differs from my Caesar Sauce. The Sauce is more of a dipping sauce, has stronger flavors, and is much more obviously yogurt based. This is your classic, quintessential, tried and true Caesar salad dressing.
