The Caesar Salad - a popular restaurant lunch dish. It’s been adapted a few times from the original which was more of a side dish. Today, we’re going to make it the way I like to eat it - as a main with crispy skin chicken and crispy bacon.
Category
Lunch
Servings
1
Prep time
20 minutes
Cook time
30 minutes
The Caesar Salad - a popular restaurant lunch dish. It’s been adapted a few times from the original which was more of a side dish. Today, we’re going to make it the way I like to eat it - as a main with crispy skin chicken and crispy bacon.
Ingredients
- Chicken breast
- Baby gem lettuce (traditionally done with romaine lettuce)
- French stick
- Streaky bacon
- Eggs
- Parmesan cheese
- Room temp water
- 2 egg yolks
- Grated parmesan (around 20g)
- 3 anchovies
- 1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
- Worcestershire sauce
- 100ml olive oil
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 clove garlic, finely grated
- 3 turns of the pepper grinder
Salad
Dressing
Directions
Prep your proteins and croutons
Fill a small saucepan with water and place over high heat to boil (this is for your eggs) so it’s ready to go for step 5.
- Then, start with a cold pan with some olive oil on the bottom. Turn the heat on.
- Season your chicken breast with salt and place it skin-side down in the oil. Let the pan come up to temperature. Once it comes up to temperature, turn the heat down to low so we render the fat out slowly to get crispy skin.
- In another pan on the heat, add your bacon and a little bit of water (room temp).
- Add your eggs to the (just) boiling water you prepped in the first step. Timer on for 6 minutes. Once they’re done, run under some cold water so they stop cooking.
- Check the bacon and if the fat has rendered, flip it over to cook the other side. Flip again, just to get some extra colour on both sides. Remove from the pan onto a plate with a paper towel.
- Check your chicken and if it’s golden on the skin side, turn over. Check the temperature. Now, you can finish your chicken in the oven or in the pan depending on where the temperature is at. My chicken was only at 38°c so I finished it in the oven for 7-8 minutes at 180°c.
- Next, task your french stick and slice about 1cm thick. Give them a little drizzle of olive oil and season with salt. Place in a 180°c oven for 10 minutes.
Dressing
Add 2 egg yolks to a bowl, followed by 3 anchovies and smash them up with a fork so you don’t get large lumps.
- Add a heaped tsp of Dijon mustard, grated parmesan (around 20g), a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce, a small amount of grated garlic (optional), pepper and give it a mix.
- As you’re mixing, pour in the oil one quarter at a time and mix until homogeneous before adding the next amount of oil.
- Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice and check the seasoning at the end.
Make your salad
Carve your chicken.
- In the same bowl as your dressing, add the washed lettuce and mix.
- Arrange the lettuce in a serving bowl, followed by the croutons, bacon (broken. up), egg (chopped in half) seasoned in salt, chicken and one last shaving of parmesan.
- Enjoy!
