Caesar Salad. One of the most popular salads out there. Many are done dreadfully, nothing more than a soupy, garlicky mess where the lettuce is reduced to sloppy threads, with mushy, mealy, stale croutons floating like flotsam in the flood.
I wanted the bright flavour of a good Caesar dressing, with a focus on extra vegetables in every step of a traditional Caesar salad.
Firstly, the dressing is normally an emulsion of egg yolk, anchovies, garlic, lemon and olive oil. I decided to emulsify roasted peppers with garlic and yogurt with a hint of roasted and braised leek. The roasted flavour would impart a mild smokiness to the dressing. Normally, there is also bacon involved, but in a food world overrun with bacon, I decided to leave it out entirely.
Secondly, I wanted a sharper flavoured cheese. Traditional Caesar salad has Parmesan. A beautiful cheese in its own right, I wanted a cheese that not only adds that salty burst that the cheese brings, but a crumbled textural component to the salad. Not quite the bacon crispness, but a variability in texture between it and the dressed romaine lettuce.
Thirdly, the crouton need not be a dry cube of bread. A good crouton is delicious and I’ll add them on occasion, but to achieve an almost endlessly crisp crouton, I decided on small cubes of fresh kohlrabi. Its cabbage/apple/potato like crispness and flavour compliments the overall combination incredibly well.
Lastly, the romaine lettuce is a beautiful lettuce, especially when it’s fresh from the earth. There is a crispness to the central spine of each leaf that needs to be respected. A light coating of dressing is all that is needed.
Roasted Pepper Caesar Salad
Roasted Pepper Caesar Dressing:
1/2 cup roasted peppers (2 sweet bell peppers roasted at 200C/425F for 30 minutes until deeply golden and blistered on the skin. Cover it with plastic wrap in a bowl for 20 minutes, peel, de-seed and chop roughly)
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 leek, white part split lengthwise, pan roasted on both sides over medium high heat until deeply golden on both sides. Add 1/2 cup water to the pan and simmer over medium high heat until the water absorbs and evaporates (about 5-7 minutes).
Place all of the prepared ingredients for the dressing in a blender and purée until smooth. Set aside.
For the salad:
6 cups romaine lettuce, torn into rough 5cm/2″ pieces
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 cup kohlrabi, peeled and chopped into 1cm (1/2″) cubes
Reserved Roasted Pepper Caesar Dressing
In a large bowl, add the dressing to the bottom. Add the romaine lettuce, feta and kohlrabi cubes. Toss the salad with the dressing gently with your fingertips until lightly coated. Serves 2-3.
I love the Caesar Dressing. Can I add garlic salt instead of garlic cloves?
If you do that, leave out the salt in the recipe or it’ll be too salty when blended in the salad with the feta cheese 🙂
Yeah, I’ll eliminate normal salt for garlic salt 🙂
I hope you enjoy! Happy salad making! 🙂