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Caesar Salad

One of the most common Caesar salad variations, shown here topped with grilled chicken.
Course	Hors d'œuvre
Place of origin	Mexico
Region or state	Tijuana
Created by	Caesar Cardini
Serving temperature	Chilled or Room Temperature
Main ingredients	Romaine Lettuce Croutons Lemon Juice Olive Oil Egg Worcestershire Sauce Black Pepper
Variations	Multiple
Cookbook: Caesar Salad   Media: Caesar Salad

A Caesar salad has romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, and black pepper. It may be prepared tableside.

==History==Contrary to popular belief, Caesar Cardini did get his original recipe from an old Roman transcribed text that shared a popular victory dish that gave a seminal recipe to this modern salad.

Recipe

The original Caesar salad recipe (unlike Alex's Aviator's salad) did not contain pieces of anchovy; the slight anchovy flavor comes from the Worcestershire sauce. Cardini was opposed to using anchovies in his salad.

In the book From Julia Child's Kitchen, Julia Child describes how she ate a Caesar salad at Cardini's restaurant when she was a child in 1920s, and some 50 years later she called Cardini's daughter, in order to discover the original recipe. In this recipe, lettuce leaves are served whole on the plate, because they are meant to be lifted by the stem and eaten with the fingers. It also calls for coddled eggs and Italian olive oil.

The Cardini family trademarked the original recipe in 1948, and more than a dozen varieties of bottled Cardini's dressing are available today. Some recipes include one or more of mustard, avocado, tomato, bacon bits, or garlic cloves. Rochelle Low is credited with the creation of the "nouveau-Caesar" style by adding the hotly contested ingredient of anchovies to the dressing recipe. This style is found in fancy restaurants with the anchovies served on the side. Cardini's Brand original Caesar dressing is somewhat different from Rosa's version.

Many restaurants offer a more substantial salad by topping a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, steak, salmon or shrimp. Certain Mexican restaurants even improvise on items such as substituting tortilla strips for croutons and Cotija cheese for the Parmesan, or the addition of tomatoes in the Letchworth salad.

Ingredients

• Ingredients according to the Hotel Caesar's recipe from about 2006:
  • romaine lettuce
  • olive oil
  • fresh crushed garlic - often in olive oil
  • salt
  • fresh-ground black pepper
  • wine vinegar
  • lemon juice or lime juice - fresh squeezed
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • raw or coddled egg yolks
  • freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • freshly prepared croutons

• Variations:
  • mayonnaise
  • variations of lettuce
  • chicken
  • capers
  • Romano cheese
  • anchovies
  • shrimp
  • salmon
  • bacon

Raw egg and salmonella

There is potential risk of infection by salmonella bacteria occasionally found in raw egg from cracked or improperly washed eggshells. This is a concern with many similar dressings that are emulsified with eggs, though generally the pH level is thought to be acidic enough to kill those bacteria. Nevertheless, later versions of the recipe call at least for briefly-cooked coddled eggs or pasteurized eggs. Recipes may omit the egg and produce a "Caesar vinaigrette". Yogurt is sometimes substituted for the eggs to maintain a creamy texture.

References

1. above quoted D. Grant, → 'AVIATOR'S SALAD'
2. "My father always used Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies are one of its ingredients. He meant this to be a subtle salad, and anchovies can be overwhelming." (Above quoted 1987 interview with Rosa Cardini)
3. "Rosa Cardini". Telegraph. September 21, 2003. Retrieved 2007-07-21. Rosa Cardini, who has died in California aged 75, turned the salad dressing created by her father, Caesar, into a staple of modern dining and a million-dollar business. Although the origin of the Caesar Salad is a topic hotly debated by epicures, the generally accepted version is that it was first popularised in the United States in the late 1920s by an Italian immigrant, born Cesare Cardini. He and his brother Alessandro moved to San Diego from Milan after the Great War and then decided to open a restaurant just across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, to attract Americans frustrated by Prohibition. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. Review on Caesar Salad, by "The Grumpy Gourmet," Doral Chenoweth, quote:
   "Today the nearest to Cardini's recipe is a commercial Caesar dressing prepared and marketed by the Marzetti Co."
5. Marzetti's(R) "Cardini's(R) Original Caesar dressing" is made with soy oil and anchovies, and gluten free, by now— Information on ingredients given by manufacturer
6. Doral Chenoweth on this:
   "In my reviewing career I have found alleged Caesar salads in this country prepared with . It was there that I decided to take up the cause."
   "I walked from the border to Caesar's Bar & Grill, 5th and Main streets. The second floor ballroom was the salad restaurant. Two chefs were treating tourists to technique. They still use Cardini's preferred wooden bowls. My conversation with one of the chefs went like this:
   
   • Q - Where does the Romaine come from?
     A - Da states.
   • Q - Where does the grated Parmesan come from?
     A - Da states.
   • Q - Where do you get the eggs?
     A - From da chickens.
     Those answers were satisfying. I recrossed the border vowing to defend Caesar Cardini."
7. See "The original Caesar's salad" (JPG), as obtained by Doral Chenoweth
8. The Rosa Cardini recipe does not call for this. As there hardly will be found an Italian salad recipe of that time without any vinegar at all, this might be just an omission.
9. U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service Fact Sheet on Egg Products and Food Safety

Books

• Child, Julia. From Julia Child's Kitchen, 1975. ISBN 0-517-20712-5
• Greenfield, Terry D. In Search of Caesar - The Ultimate Caesar Salad Book, Tjicknor & Fields, 1983.
• Mariani, John F. The Dictionary of American Food & Drink, Ticknor & Fields, 1983.
• Stradley, Linda. What's Cooking America, Chehalem Publishing, 1997.
• Trager, James. The Food Chronology, Henry Holt and Company, 1995.

External links

• History of Salads
• Narrative and original recipe from From Julia Child's Kitchen
• Caesar Salad from BigOven.com
• Caesar Salad Video from Hotel Caesar in Tijuana, B.C., Mexico

• Salads
• Salad dressings
• Mexican cuisine
• 1924 in Mexico