MASTER THE CLASSICS
NEW FOOD SERIES
From Italy via Mexico, then on to a supermarket shelf near you. This famous salad has a glamorous past you’ll want to tuck into
You can be creative with this salad. Don’t have sourdough? Use ciabatta. Dislike anchovies? Up the Worcestershire sauce instead. You can even add chicken if you want.
Sibling rivalry, a ban on booze and Hollywood stars.
Not things you’d usually associate with a salad. But when it’s a salad as notable as the Caesar – which now has its own namesake dressing in most supermarkets – it stands to reason that the deceptively simple recipe has a colourful history. So, on the centenary of its creation, it’s time to pay this emperor of salads its dues.
Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant and Mexican restaurateur, is credited with creating the eponymous dish, which – as is the case with many classic recipes – he concocted under pressure and with minimal ingredients.
The story goes that with American customers fleeing prohibition by crossing the border, his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico called Caesar’s, couldn’t cope with the increased demand, and he ran out of key ingredients. So he rustled up a dish with what he had: romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese, lemons, olive oil, bread, eggs and Worcestershire sauce (you might notice a missing fishy ingredient – more on that later).
However, this story is still debated, and the salad is sometimes credited to Caesar’s brother, Alex. According to Diana Kennedy in her book The Essential Cuisines of Mexico (Random House, £27), Alex moved from Italy to Tijuana to join his sibling, where he created the aviator salad – which eventually became the Caesar. Whatever you believe, the salad was a hit, with movie stars such as Clark Gable and Jean Harlow rumoured to travel miles to watch chefs toss the ingredients together at their table.
There’s not so much to debate when it comes to the ingredients, but let’s get the most controversial topic out of the way – my recipe includes anchovies. Purists will be aghast. But while Caesar never used them (though apparently Alex did), most modern recipes do.
Ollie Templeton, chef and co-founder of London’s Carousel, has tucked into the Caesar salad at Brooklyn institution Roberta’s. He says it has an anchovypacked dressing, giving a deep, savoury flavour that reminds him of summer nights spent in Brooklyn. If you’re looking for things to be a little tamer, a few fillets finely mashed into the dressing adds a satisfactory umami boost.
Romaine is the perfect leaf choice, chilled in icy water to make it extra crisp. Feel free to serve the leaves torn, but kept whole they make perfect vehicles for mouthfuls of unctuous sauce, salty Parmesan and crunchy croutons. On the croutons: baking them in a garlic-infused o
