How to cook a Caesar salad

Caesar salad is one of the most popular snacks among our compatriots, it can be found in the menu of cheap cafes and fashionable restaurants. The composition and presentation of the dish may be different, but it always includes juicy lettuce, crispy wheat crackers, rich cheese and a light savory sauce. Speaking together, these ingredients create a unique and surprisingly harmonious union, thanks to which almost everybody likes Caesar salad. The presence of a significant number of variations of this recipe allows you to choose the option for every taste.

Cooking Features

The simplicity of the recipe does not always indicate that any cook can make a tasty dish for it. Sometimes to prepare a tasty snack from a simple set of ingredients you have to put a lot of effort and imagination. Knowing a few secrets of cooking Caesar salad will help you make an appetizing and palatable snack, even if your culinary experience is minimal.

The main ingredient in many salads is sauce. It is he who unites the products included in the composition of the snack, gives it new flavors. As the legends say, it was the sauce that made Caesar salad popular and famous. He was prepared by Caesar Cardini, the first American of Italian origin, using for him lightly cooked, half-baked eggs, lemon juice and olive oil. He mixed these ingredients with romaine lettuce, wheat baguette croutons and grated cheese. The resulting dish was so unique that it was named after the chef-inventor. It happened in 1924, during which time the salad became famous. If you want to make an appetizer that is identical or almost identical to the original, eggs for the sauce must be cooked, but not completely. To do this, they are kept in barely boiling or even very hot water for 2 minutes, then just left in it for a quarter of an hour, without heating.
Salad varieties with crispy and succulent leaves are suitable for Caesar salad. The most commonly used varieties are Romain or Iceberg. Some successfully replace them with Peking cabbage. To make the leaves more juicy and crunchy, they are soaked for an hour in cold water. This is especially important if a gentle and soft leaf salad is used to make a snack.
“Caesar” salad croutons are easy to prepare by yourself, finely chop the bread and dry it before browning in the oven. Even faster, you can solve the problem by frying the bread slices in the pan, but because of this, the salad will become more nutritious. If you do not have the time and decided to use the store rusks, choose wheat with a neutral taste. Also suitable crackers with cheese, tomato, garlic.
A delicious Caesar salad will only be freshly prepared. Scalded lettuce leaves and soaked croutons will not make it more beautiful and appetizing. It is recommended to prepare a snack shortly before serving.

Initially, Caesar salad was prepared from a minimal amount of ingredients, served not only as a separate dish, but also as a side dish for fish and meat. Now the salad is more often prepared with chicken or shrimp, other products are included in it, so that it turns out to be nourishing by itself, does not require any additions. Each cook has the opportunity to create his own culinary masterpiece, based on one of the already popular recipes.

Classic Caesar Salad Recipe

Composition:

Romaine (Romano) variety salad - 0, 3 kg;
Parmesan cheese - 120 g;
wheat baguette - 0, 2 kg;
chicken egg - 2 pcs .;
lemon juice - 40 ml;
Worcestershire sauce - 2-3 ml;
olive oil - 100 ml;
salt, black pepper powder - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Peel the baguette, cut into small, thin slices. Spread out on a baking sheet. Put it in a preheated 180 degree oven. Drain until the top layer of bread is lightly browned.
Wash lettuce leaves, put for 40-60 minutes in a container filled with cold water.
Drain the lettuce leaves with a napkin, tear them into small enough pieces with your hands.
Wash eggs, fill with water. Heat over low heat until the water begins to boil. After 1, 5-2 minutes, remove from heat. Cool, break in a bowl. Beat with a fork or a whisk.
Add Worcester sauce, butter and lemon juice to the egg mass. Beat with a whisk until the sauce has a uniform consistency.
Mix lettuce leaves with half the sauce, put on a dish.
Chop cheese on a fine grater. Sprinkle the salad with them, using half the product.
Spread the croutons, pour the remaining sauce, sprinkle with cheese.

Some crackers can be put aside to decorate the salad before serving it. The dish prepared according to this recipe is almost universal: it is combined with fish, meat, chicken, used as a self-contained snack or served as a side dish.

Caesar salad with chicken and cherry tomatoes

Composition:

leaf lettuce - 0, 2 kg;
chicken breast fillet - 0, 4 kg;
cherry tomatoes - 0, 2 kg;
hard cheese - 100 g;
garlic - 3 cloves;
chicken egg - 3 pcs .;
olive oil - 160 ml;
lemon juice - 40 ml;
mustard table - 5 ml;
wheat bread - 150 g;
salt, black pepper powder - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Soak the washed salad for an hour in cold water.
Wash chicken breast fillet, dry with a napkin, cut into cubes.
Eggs boil hard boiled. Cool them down by dropping them in cold water for 15 minutes. Take the shells off them. Remove the yolks. Proteins can be used for cooking other dishes or decorating them.
Pound the yolks with a fork, adding mustard to them. Pound, gradually adding lemon juice and olive oil. Do not use all the oil - leave a spoon for making crackers and 40-50 ml for roasting chicken fillet. Do not forget to add a little salt and pepper to the sauce.
Cut the crushed long loaf into medium-sized slices. Lightly dry the pieces in the oven.
Cut the garlic into large plates. Fry in the remaining oil for 3-5 minutes.
Remove the garlic from the pan, brown the dried bread in it. Put it on a napkin so that it absorbs excess oil.
In place of the croutons put the pieces of chicken fillet. Fry them, occasionally turning them over, until tender. Put on a napkin to remove excess fat.
Salad, dried, coarsely rupture your hands, scatter on a dish.
Wash tomatoes and blot with a napkin. Using a sharp knife, cut each vegetable in half.
On a salad, lay out the chicken fillet.
Lay the tomato halves between the fillet slices.
Pour the sauce using half.
Spread the croutons, pour the remaining sauce.
Grate the cheese, sprinkle the salad with it.

Caesar salad prepared according to this recipe is worthy of a festive table. Serve it can be portioned. In this case, it is immediately drawn up on separate plates, and is not decomposed on them after preparation.

Caesar salad with shrimps

Composition:

Romain salad - 0, 4 kg;
hard cheese - 120 g;
wheat bread - 0, 2 kg;
tiger shrimps - 0, 5 kg;
honey - 20 ml;
olive oil - 60 ml for sauce, 40 ml for marinade, 40-60 ml for frying;
lemon juice - 60 ml;
balsamic vinegar - 10 ml;
mustard table - 5 ml;
Provencal herbs - 5 g;
garlic - 6 cloves;
anchovy fillets - 100 g;
chicken egg - 4 pcs .;
salt, pepper - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Defrost shrimps, rinse, remove from the shell.
Mix a spoonful of lemon juice with the same amount of honey melted to a liquid state and two spoons of olive oil, pepper, salt and Provencal herbs.
Immerse the peeled shrimps in the cooked mixture and leave to marinate for half an hour.
Bread cut into small cubes.
Cut the garlic cloves into plates.
Heat a spoonful of olive oil in a pan, put garlic in it. Fry until dark.
Strain the oil into another pan, discard the garlic.
In garlic butter, crush pieces of white bread, put them on a baking sheet, and send for 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees.
Salad, rinsed under running water, put in a pan with cold water, leave for half an hour.
Heat a new batch of oil in a clean pan. Fry the shrimp in it. They can be considered ready when they lose transparency.
Boil the egg softly, clean and place in the bowl of the blender.
Also send anchovy fillets there. It can be replaced with hamsa fillet spiced salted
Add mustard, Worcester sauce, vinegar, oil and lemon juice to the egg and fish. Pour the pepper.
Turn on the unit and grind the ingredients into a homogeneous mass.
Salad large tear, arrange in plates.
Arrange the fried shrimps.
Place the sauce in the center of each plate.
Sprinkle with croutons and grated cheese.

An appetizer made according to this recipe is distinguished by its original serving and exquisite taste.

Caesar Salad from Peking Cabbage

Composition:

Chinese cabbage - 0, 4 kg;
smoked chicken breast - 0.5 kg;
hard cheese - 0, 3 kg;
garlic - 3 cloves;
mayonnaise or unsweetened yogurt - to taste;
salt, pepper - to taste;
fresh parsley and dill - 50 g;
wheat crackers with garlic or cheese flavor - 80-100 g.

Method of preparation:

Free the meat from smoked breast from the skins and bones, cut into small cubes.
Chop cheese on a coarse grater.
Divide the cabbage into leaves, wash, chop.
Finely chop the garlic, mix with mayonnaise or yogurt. When using yogurt, add a little salt and pepper to the sauce.
Fold the cabbage, chicken and cheese into a large bowl, add the sauce, mix thoroughly.
Put in a salad bowl, sprinkle with crackers and chopped greens.

This Caesar salad recipe is good because it takes a minimum of time to cook. Such a snack can be made on arrival of unexpected guests or for a family dinner. The snack has a characteristic Caesar salad flavor, although its composition is significantly different from the traditional one.

How to decorate a Caesar salad

Caesar salad looks bright and fresh, even if you just mix the ingredients that make up it, put it on a dish and pour over the sauce. But you always want to offer guests something more sophisticated and unusual. We offer several salad dressing options that will help solve the problem without spending a lot of energy.

The whole salad leaves covering the plate will be a beautiful background for the salad. Salad itself can be put in the center, around the perimeter to overlay it with croutons, decorate the top with a sprig of basil or cheese grated with spiderwebs.
Salad will play, if ingredients included in its composition are layered without mixing, and then poured over with sauce. You can lay out the ingredients around the circumference, maintaining the same interval between the pieces of the same product, this will give the snack a more ordered look.
“Caesar” with cherry tomatoes can be decorated with tomato halves, laying them up with convex sides and depicting dots on them. Thanks to this, pieces of vegetables will look like ladybirds.
Salad can be laid out on a dish, giving it the shape of a heart, a circle or another object. Make it easier to use stencil. Crackers will help make the boundaries of the subject more clear, so that everyone will be clear what you want to depict.
With a little effort, you can bring the Caesar salad to the table really beautiful and original.

The Caesar Salad, although born in America, is in keeping with the spirit of Italian cuisine; it turns out colorful, light and healthy. It does not leave heaviness in the stomach and perfectly nourishes. Classic dish options can be served not only as an independent snack, but also as a side dish.

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