And Caesar Wins Again!

Yesterday I did a post on a simple home made salad, quick and easy to whip up whenever you're feeling the need for a salad. I also mentioned a few times how much I love caesar salad. Well, since then I had been craving a tasty caesar salad and so today I made one. I am borrowing this idea from a couple different places, first and foremost, the idea came from Jamie Oliver's website. Secondly, the dressing recipe came from the food network website. Now, I've combined the two and made changes to them both.

This is not just your regular everyday throw-everything-together-and-chow-down kind of salad. I agree it is a chow down kind of salad, but it's not the throw everything together kind. Let me explain. I love caesar salad, all kinds of caesar salad, but I wanted something different, a different way of eating caesar salad, so I did some research and sure enough Jamie Oliver has exactly what I'm looking for: Caesar Salad Bites. It's the same concept as your everyday caesar salad, but it's more of a finger-food appetizer. It's easy, it's fun and most importantly it's delicious!

Caesar Salad Appetizer

Romaine Lettuce
6 slices of bacon (I used a wonderfully flavoured apple smoked bacon, maple is also amazing)
Freshly grated parmesan cheese
8 Anchovy fillets (in oil and sea salt)
6 cloves of garlic
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (I used a real wine vinegar, I want to try white wine vinegar next)
3 tablespoons Hellman's mayonnaise
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste (anchovy fillets almost have enough salt to begin with)
Fresh lemon juice

Start by getting your oven on to 450F or if you prefer frying your bacon you can do that as well, need the bacon to be mostly crispy, but not burnt. A lot of these recipes need a blender or a mortar and pestle, as a quick fix I use my blender, you can also get a bowl out and a wide spoon and mash all the ingredients together, but I highly recommend investing in both a mortar and pestle and blender. It will make your life much easier!

Peel and cut the hard end off the garlic cloves, take out your anchovy fillets and throw in the blender with the dijon, white wine vinegar, mayonnaise and a pinch of ground pepper. Blend all of this until there are a minimal amount of chunks, there will be a few small ones, but that's natural. Give it a taste, everyones palate is different, add a bit of salt if it needs some. Salad dressing should always be just a hint too acidic and salty, that way when it's on the salad, the water from the lettuce leaves (or whatever other salad mix you're using) will tone down the acidity and saltiness. Add your lemon juice as well, I recommend half a lemon to start then go from there, add more if you want more lemony flavour. That's the great thing about cooking, add or take away whatever you want for the flavour you desire!

Let's get started on the romaine leaves now. Rip or cut about an inch off the bottom stalks, take off the outside layers until you get to the more pale coloured leaves, these are the ones you want, smaller but not too small, and not too big too handle either. You can save the other leaves for something else, or do an extra large salad bite if you wanted. Wash them up and dry them either with paper towel or use a salad spinner if you've got one. Grab your croutons and place a few on each leaf after placing them on your plate of choice. By now the bacon should be done, dry the grease off with paper towel and roll each slice up and chop it up into tiny pieces. They don't need to be the tiniest pieces ever, but a rough chop will do. Take your dressing and lightly drizzle each leaf, don't over do it or there will be too much flavour from the dressing and you won't taste anything else. Also, don't dress your salads until a few moments before eating, otherwise your salad will wilt and not taste very good at all.

After you get your romaine leaves dressed up, grab your parmesan and grate away! Don't need much, some parmesans are saltier than others I find, you don't need to completely cover the bites either.

I love caesar salad, and these take it just that much further with flavour and fun factor. Amazing!

Enjoy!