How To Make Caesar Dressing!---and correctly pronounce Worcestershire Sauce.

Nothing is as ubiquitous to a restaurant menu as the Caesar Salad.

From white-linen French restaurants to the newest farm-to-table offering to your neighborhood Applebees----the Caesar salad is everywhere.

Restaurants all over NYC offer myriads of variations on the simple salad, as well.  Some switch up the standard romaine lettuce to raw baby kale or even grill the romaine over open flames.  Some will do it old skool with raw eggs and a tableside presentation.  Other places vary up the croutons and make them out of corn bread or some house-baked sourdough.  And then comes the plethora of “additions” to your salad---chicken, salmon, shrimp, and I’ve even seen grilled baby octopus.

All these things in an attempt to make a simple salad that everyone likes more complicated.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for variations on the theme.  But I worry it encourages a belief that the Caesar Salad is too complicated to make at home.

‘Tis not!

Without going into the hotly debated origins of the salad, it is definitely Italian in origin.  Now, whether it was one Italian guy in Chicago in 1903 or one of two Italian guys in Tijuana in 1924 OR 1927…

I am not here to create a ruckus.

I will dispel one myth, however.  NO Caesar dressing uses raw eggs.  It employs one-minute coddled eggs.  Yes, this is a very fine distinction.  There’s a line from an old British comedy from the 1930s where an elderly Lord complains to his butler, “Are these eggs medium-boiled?  They are NOT!  They are in the same virginal state as when they left the hen!” 

That would be the sort of egg we're talking about here.

Chef Ernest Gonzalez and I were chatting about Caesar Salads the other day.  He is the owner and chef of Harlem Food Bar.  And (in full-disclosure) I work there as a waitress.  Ernie makes all his dressings and sauces in-house.  Yes, it may be more cost-effective to buy them out of large tubs from the big distributors (and frankly, most restaurants do just that).  But when you make your own dressing, you control what goes into it.  You control the salt, sugar (or corn syrup in most bottled dressings) and you avoid the preservatives. 

They also taste WAY better!

Chef Ernie doesn’t use coddled eggs in his dressing as a precaution against pregnant women (who should NOT consume eggs that aren’t fully cooked).  But he STILL manages a flavorful dressing that customers (and staff) crave.

How does he do it?

Well...I know, because I’ve been making Caesar Salad dressing for years. 

In fact, I’ve been known in SEVERAL restaurants I’ve worked in to “save the day” when we ran out of the bottled stuff.

“We will NOT 86 Caesar Salad as long as I’M in the house!  Step aside!”

You need 8 simple ingredients that you may have in your kitchen right now.

Mayonnaise

Garlic

Black pepper

Worcestershire Sauce

Dijon Mustard

Parmesan Cheese

Lemons

Olive Oil

That’s it!

Just a few notes on the ingredients:

Mayonnaise:  Yes, I make my own.  But I’m a bit of a mayonnaise fiend.  So I ALWAYS need to have a fresh supply handy.  And being one of those naturally thin people everyone hates, sometimes in the summer when I lose my appetite to the heat---the only thing keeping my weight on is mayonnaise.  But I only buy Hellman’s.  Anything else is crap.

Garlic:  HAS to be fresh.  And fresh isn’t that pre-chopped stuff packed in water and preservatives.  All the health benefits of garlic are leeched out when you use that stuff.  If you don’t enjoy chopping garlic (Chef Ernie finds it relaxing---I find it irritating) get one of these babies.   

 

My aunt bought me this little mini-chopper as a stocking-stuffer.  I don't know how I lived without it.

Black Pepper:  If you don’t have a pepper grinder, getting one will change your life completely.  Pepper never tasted so good.  That being said----until you get one, the pre-ground stuff in a can (as long as it hasn’t been sitting on your shelf for the past two years) will do just fine.

Worcestershire Sauce:  People seem to have a wee bit of trouble pronouncing the word “Worcestershire”.  It’s a three-syllable word.  The emphasis is on the first syllable, which is pronounced Wuh.  The last syllable is like New Hampshire.  Shir.  All together it’s pronounced:  WUH-ster-shir.

Here’s a handy video tutorial, as well:

How To Pronounce Worcestershire

Also a note:  Worcestershire Sauce will make this non-vegetarian.  There’s a tiny bit of anchovy in there.

Dijon Mustard:  HAS to be Dijon.  Any brand, really.  But yellow mustard is not going to cut it here.

Parmesan Cheese:  Yes, obviously if you can get your hands on some Parmigiano Reggiano—it’s definitely the way to go.  But this is salad dressing.  Yes, if you get spoiled with the real Italian stuff, you’ll notice the difference if you shake some Kraft powdered cheese into the dressing-----but most people won’t.  Grana Padana (another hard Italian cheese) is also a good substitute.  It’s a bit milder and sweeter but it works---in some cases, better.

Lemons:  Do NOT buy lemon juice in a bottle.  I don’t know what exactly is in that bottle---but it’s not lemon juice.  I can’t even begin.  And supposedly a TRUE Caesar Salad actually uses limes.  The word for lemons and limes is the same in Spanish.  A simple error in recipe translation.  If you ask a Spanish-speaking line cook in NYC for a lemon, he'll likely hand you a lime.    

Olive Oil:  HAS to be olive oil----but needn’t be extra virgin.  In fact, I prefer regular olive oil in my Caesar dressing as the flavor is lighter---but any sort of olive oil will do.

Into you blender or food processor, put:

½ cup mayonnaise

1 Tbs Worcestershire Sauce

2 Tbs lemon juice (basically, one lemon)

½ tsp pepper

1 Tbs Dijon Mustard

2 Tbs freshly chopped garlic

2 or 3 Tbs Parmesan Cheese

Once everything seems to come together, drizzle in:

4 Tbs olive oil 

  

I often add an extra bit of cheese at the end because I like a slightly crumbly texture to my dressing.

At the end, I always do a taste test to make sure I have the balance I’m looking for, so adjust to your tastes.

I put the dressing in a jar and pop it in my fridge.  It will become a bit thicker after “setting” for a few hours.

But no need to wait.  You can go ahead and plop it onto whatever greens you like.

Just please don’t tell me you’re using boxed croutons.

Sigh.

Why would anyone BUY croutons????

Okay, that will be my next post.