Caesar Salad *Recipe # 35*

Caesar Salad is one of my favorite things when I go out to a restaurant. For whatever reason, I have never made this at home until now. Sure, I have had it with the bottled dressing at home but never with homemade dressing. I kept putting this one off. Everytime I was hungry for Caesar Salad I thought about the anchovy paste and the raw egg yolk in the dressing. Why do I allow these things to bother me? I guess I'm quirky that way.

Normally I am the only person in my house who will eat salad. I don't usually like to make a big salad like this because it would just go to waste. However, yesterday was my daughter's 8th birthday and we had some family over. I knew I had at least 4 or 5 salad eaters so I decided to go with this recipe. Everything was so chaotic and busy that I forgot about the raw egg yolk and anchovy paste and shoveled the food down my throat as fast as possible. The salad was really good!! It was so good that by the time I ate it was almost gone. My sister-in-law said it was the bomb! I was glad to hear it because I haven't really made too many salad dressings in my life and I was a little unsure about how this one turned out.

This recipe is easy and very easy to follow. You make the salad dressing in the blender and it is finished in no time at all. I did some research online and found that 1 teaspoon anchovy paste equals 4 anchovies. I added the 1 teaspoon anchovy paste, 2 egg yolks, 1 tbsp. dijon mustard, juice of 2 lemons, and 2 tbsps. water in the blender and processed for 30 seconds. With the blender running, in poured in the oil. I poured the dressing into a bowl and stirred in 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese and added black pepper. I refrigerated the dressing for a couple hours.

I had already cut up the romaine lettuce and the only other thing left to do was create the garlic paste to rub onto the serving bowl. Tyler says to take 1 clove of garlic that is peeled and smashed. He mixes this with a little salt and olive oil to create a paste and rubs it all over the bowl. Before serving you just add the salad and dressing and toss. I had some baguette that had been toasted, but I thought it was still too hot to add to the salad. I added some big parmesan curls to the top of the salad and served it.

I would make this again if I had some salad eaters around to help me eat it all! The only thing I would change is the quantity of lemon juice. I added the full juice of 2 lemons and my dressing was a little on the lemony side. It was also a little thin. I don't know if the juice of 2 lemons is a very good measurement. I looked this up online and found that one lemon should yield 3 tbsps. juice. This means that I should have added only about 6 tbsps. lemon juice. I think I added a little more than this. In my rush to get all the food prepared, I didn't measure the lemon juice. I think the next time lemon juice comes up in a recipe I will measure the juice of one lemon as 3 tbsps. I enjoy learning these things sometimes. After all, I bet I've read the information about lemons several times. But, you learn by trial and error and then you usually never forget it!!