Caesar Salad, still loved after 100 years

Check out my first Novel https://www.amazon.co.uk/KAT-Matthew-Woods-ebook/dp/B00D1D8D2A
https://www.facebook.com/unclemattscookerylessons/
https://x.com/UncleMatt98460
https://www.instagram.com/uncle_matts_cookery_lessons/
#unclematt #cooking #foodies

Caesar Salad

The dressing

Egg yolks 2
Olive oil 160ml
Lemon juice 60ml
Worcester sauce 2 tsp
Garlic cloves 2
Anchovy fillets 4
Parmesan cheese 1 tbsp
Dijon mustard 1 tsp
Salt a small pinch
Black pepper twist it till you arm hurts

The croutons

Stale white bread 3 thick slices
Oil or butter enough to coat
Garlic cloves 1 skin on
Salt to taste

Lettuce

Romaine or baby gems washed in cold water
Extra parmesan added is very nice, this can be shaved like in restaurants or finely grated, it’s up to you.

Adding other items such as chicken, bacon or even prawns is up to you but it wont be a classic Caesar Salad
Caesar Salad, so good

hello In this video I’m going to show you how I make a classic Caesar salad Um it’s there’s not that many ingredients and we’re not going to stray too far away We’re going to try to get really get down to the original recipe which is from about 100 years ago an Italian restaurant in Mexico just across the border from the States during the time of Prohibition Basically Americans used to like to go across the border cuz they liked getting drunk And um and what better reason to celebrate a wonderful salad like all the classics It’s not complicated I’m not going to mess around with it too much and I know that you’re going to really like this one Okay got the old pest and mortar out here Um couple of bits of garlic in there Recipe will be in the description And a tiny bit of salt Don’t want to put too much salt in this but it’s abrasive and it really helps to sort of smash the garlic up to a pulp And once the garlic is smashed up these are the very salty tinned anchovies Reserving the oil Well we’re going to see what it’s like later when I taste it whether or not I need that And now we’re going to separate a couple of eggs So I’m going to show you how an expert separates eggs You see confident crack on the flat surface Pass the shell the egg from one shell to the other And I’ll just show you how easy it is to do that again And no no Okay So my shell didn’t sort of crack halfway And uh it’s making me look a bit silly but we’ll be all right We can pass it in there And I think I just used my hand to get it out and we got away with it and nobody noticed cuz no one watches these videos anyway Right So egg yolks into the pestle and mortar with the garlic and the anchovies And now lemon juice If you don’t want to use lemon juice you’re going to need something slightly acidic So I would recommend maybe a white wine vinegar or a cider vinegar something like that But that acidity is really quite essential was a balance you know when oils fats acids it’s all part of cooking really Making your mouth feel all happy We talk some rubbish Anyway so in with the oil Now cuz I’m using a pestle and mortar mine my dressing is going to be more sauce-like If you used a whisk in a bowl you’re going to have it more emulsified more like a mayonnaise Just letting you know This is how I like mine though So keep going Olive oil And I used a bit of avocado oil oil as well because it’s not quite as strong Worcester sauce which is uh fermented anchovies So there’s a lot of anchovy going on here Dijon mustard and tons and tons of black pepper And finally some parmesan Lovely And that’s going to help add a bit of body to this sauce as well And uh we’re pretty much done there apart from we need to have a little taste of this thing What is it like Uncle Matt Yummy Very flavorsome But I think we can have the oil from the anchovies that we were reserving just in case it was really salty Done Okay So get that dressing into a bowl Now um the I don’t know which bits which but that pestle or mortar bit is not going to help So we need a spatula Let’s get it into a bowl and we’ll have a little taste We’re going to dunk in a nice crispy bit of that baby gem And it’s delicious of course So now what you’re going to need is the other very important part of the Caesar salad is some nice crunchy croutons I do recommend using a soft white sandwich loaf something like this soft white bread You’re going to get the best croutons out of this And rather than dice mine up with a knife I thought I’d tear them into like shards and chunks cuz then you get those rough edges and you get those super crunchy and crispy Absolutely gorgeous So that’s going to go in a bowl We need some fat We’re going to flavor it with some fat and that bit of garlic but I’m using a bit of unsalted butter Well I say a bit of butter you know but obviously butter makes everything better So as much of that as you want really Dump that on top of them A little bit of oil as well Toss that around And then we’re going to get those on a tray And we’re going to get this into a preheated oven There’s the temperature on your screen Arrange those nicely Space them out so that heat can get to them There’s that bit of garlic that’s going to go in there It’s going to fuse a little bit of flavor into this And I won’t give you the timings because if you pay attention you got the clock working on my oven and you’ll be able to work out for yourselves Now this is the um ingredient that is not classical but I love it So I’ve got some streaky bacon and that’s a nice technique that with a tray with a bit of paper and another tray on top holding it flat gives you those really nice shards of bacon Now those croutons are not ready yet but going to give them a move about Move them around Let the heat get to them evenly They probably need about another 10 minutes I would say But you’re just going to keep your eye on them You never know how long they’re going to take They take as long as they take And you may notice that that is not me That is my lovely lady She was helping me today with the filming and then she got carried away and wanted to do a bit of uh cooking as well So anyway we got those croutons out They’re gorgeous I’m going to put them onto a plate with a bit of tissue to drain off some of the excess fat And yeah that was crunchy and absolutely stunning So another essential part of a classic Caesar salad would normally be a co or a raman lettuce or rama lettuce however you say it I like these baby gems though They’re really crunchy and I like the size of them They just they I think they just look lovely and they taste lovely So once I’ve got those separated I’m going to immerse them in some nice cold water just just to get them really fresh while you’re waiting for the rest of the ingredients to come together So this is very much an Italian style salad even though it’s created in Mexico But it was by an Italian I don’t know It’s a it’s a fusion I don’t know what you call it But it’s very much Italian style isn’t it Not too many ingredients Really good ingredients And don’t mess around with them too much And now you’re thinking “Yeah okay You got a point about that bacon Uncle M That does look really quite good.” It does Yeah So anyway into the dressing with our gems Give those a toss around More Parmesan because why wouldn’t you want more Parmesan in it Oh my god my mouth is watering And I like to put a few croutons in at this stage Not all of them but toss those around They start absorbing some of the dressing and they get a little bit soft but they’re still a bit crunchy and it’s Oh yes Give that a good toss Uncle Matt And now this is one way you might want to arrange this if you’re showing off and you’re all ponyy Is by putting it on a nice plate like this Arrange them Take a bit of time Dot your croutons about here Arrange your bits of crispy shards of bacon just like that So it looks like it’s been done in a restaurant but you know and then a few shavings of Parmesan on top If you give this to your friends they’re going to be happy not as happy as me cuz I’m about to taste this thing So there you go That’s the Caesar salad I presented it a couple of different ways I think most of the time this is quite nice in a bowl Sort of um dumping in a bowl and it looks kind of nice all by itself Um a restaurant might do something a bit more like this to be a bit more ponyy I suppose Um and it does look rather nice Anyway let’s um let’s have a taste shall we So I’m just going to grab this is why I love these leaves in particular these baby gems because they’re a bit smaller and you can and they’re quite crunchy and you can just pick up a whole leaf Absolutely wonderful The bacon I know is me adding to it It shouldn’t be in a classic recipe but I really do think for me bit of bacon in this really finishes it off By all mean by all means Uh some chicken breasts some prawns even you know anything you want I guess eggs It’s your recipe It’s you making it But um let’s just try that And oh how can we not have a crouton on this Breaking my no carb days again It’s absolutely delicious Um I love that I’m going to put a massive dent in this now Anyway I’d like to thank you all for watching and um while you’re here you know liking subscribing sharing commenting all of those things that make absolutely no difference whatsoever but you do it anyway cuz you think Uncle Matt’s all right and you quite like this channel and um you’d like to help it grow and we’ll pretend that it does Anyway so um thanks again for watching and I’ll catch you again pretty soon Bye