Category: North and South America

09
Mar
2020

Name Plates: Caesar Salad

categories: Name Plates, Salad, United States of America

Today we are celebrating the Ides of March with, what else but, a Caesar Salad. The 15th of March may not have been a good day for old Julius C but, any day in my book is a good day to eat this classic American salad!

The Waldorf Salad may be the funniest American salad but the Caesar salad has to the most highly accoladed:

In the 1940’s Gourmet Magazine called it ‘the gastronomic highlight of the current moment’
In 1953 it was hailed as ‘the greatest recipe to originate in the Americas in 50 years’ by the International Society of Epicures.
Julia Childs called it “a sensation of a salad from coast to coast”

High praise for some dressed lettuce leaves!!!

What is Caesar Salad?

I feel like this is a little bit like trying to explain what is water. Caesar Salad is everywhere. And everyone “knows” what it is. And everyone has their own recipe. But let’s try to break it down a little bit….

Caesar Salad was created in 1924 by Caesar Cardini in his restaurant in Tijuana Mexico. The OG version was romaine (cos) lettuce leaves dressed in a mixture of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, egg yolk, Worchestershire sauce, anchovies and parmesan cheese, topped with a lone crostini, black pepper and more parmesan cheese.

No bacon
No poached eggs
No multiple croutons

I love this more austere version of what we have come to see as a “typical” Caesar Salad.

Although I am not averse to any of the above and, indeed I usually include all of them when I make a “Caesar Salad” my purist heart balks at adding

Chicken
Kale
Prawns
Avocado, or
Lobster

I love all of those things. And they all have their place. But that place is not in my Caesar Salad. And I will silently judge you if you choose to give them a place in yours.

But I will not be so quiet if you give me, or choose for yourself, a so-called Caesar salad that contains pasta, pesto, quinoa, is served in wonton cups or comes atop of pizza. Because, those things maybe something. But what they are not is the ingredients of a goddamn Caesar Salad!!!

You will need to beware the Ides O’ March if any of those ends up in my Caesar!

By the way, the Cardini restaurant still exists and if you so desire you can drop by and have one of the ensaladeros make you a Caesar salad at your table just like they did back in the day!

Which has made that restaurant in Tijuana top five in my bucket list of places to eat.

If this damn virus ever abates and we can all travel again.

I Digress

Skip over this bit if you are only interested in Caesar Salad

Can we just stop and talk about Covid-19 for a mo?

We haven’t formally been told that we have to, but my work is encouraging everyone to work from home. There was a really weird atmosphere on Friday as everyone was packing up their stuff before heading home. It was like it was Christmas in that we felt like it might be a while before we saw each other again. But like Christmas with all the joy sucked out of it.

They’ve cancelled the Grand Prix which was meant to be in Melbourne this weekend and the Comedy Festival. They cancelled the Robbie Williams concert on Saturday but not the New Order concert I went to on the same night. By the way, the icing on the cake for that show was, as the house lights came up at the end of the gig, the song ushering us all out of the venue was REM’s It’s The End of The World As We Know It.

You can’t buy hand sanitizer, toilet paper or tissues for love or money. The supermarket shelves are largely empty of all non-perishable items.

Because I will be working from home for the indefinite future I went online tonight to buy a monitor that I can plug my work laptop into so that whilst keeping myself safe from the coronavirus I am not giving myself massive eyestrain. At one point I was trying to log on to our biggest office supplies company on two different laptops and my phone and it took FOREVER to finally make my purchase. I’m sensing monitors may join toilet paper and Graham Gene Potter on Australia’s most-wanted list!

What is happening in all your countries in reaction to the virus? Are you scared? Worried? Bored?

I am about 1% worried for my personal safety. I am mildly asthmatic so I am already slightly compromised on a respiratory front I am more scared for my mother who is obvs older and massively asthmatic.

I am also really annoyed that people have responded to this in the way they have in relation to panic buying.

I have been listening to the wonderful podcast American Hysteria recently and so much of what I am seeing resonates with what I have heard on there. Can we please all just calm the farm down in this?

And just to lighten the tone? Mystery solved!

Who, Who Was Caesar?

Caesar Cardini was an Italian immigrant to the United States who, along with his brother Alex, opened restaurants in San Diego and Tijuana. If you recall, the United States was under Prohibition from 1920 through to 1933. Mexico was not. So many of the rich and famous, including many Hollywood stars, would cross the border to eat and, more particularly, drink. Caesar’s became a popular hangout for these people.

Legend has it, that the restaurant was particularly busy one Fourth of July weekend. Kitchen supplies were running out so Caesar had to make a salad from what was on hand…ecco! Caesar Salad was born.

Then, as now, the Caesar salad was made tableside for a little bit of dramatic flair.

Caesar Cardini died in 1956, but as they say, the candle burned out long before the legend ever did!

The Recipe

I used this recipe from Taste for my Caesar and I can heartily recommend it.

For a more austere version, probably close to the OG version, I can also recommend Grace Kelly’s Caesar Salad as featured in Silver Screen Suppers as featured in Recipes For Rebels by all-round internet good guy Greg Swenson.

Variations

There are probably a million recipes for Caesar salad on the internet. TBH, a lot of them, as mentioned in the intro above are not “Caesar” Salads.

Choose wisely!

Modern Day Caesar

There are not that many modern-day Caesar’s.

There’s the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan and of course, the original Joker, Cesar Romano. But, today of all days, there can only be one Caesar for us to celebrate!

Happy Ides of March everyone!

02
May
2019

Name Plates: Eggs Benedict

categories: Breakfast, Brunch, Classic Recipes, Eggs, Name Plates, United States of America

Hello brunch! Eggs Benedict is one of my favourite brunch dishes. Mind you, I would also eat them for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I’m not that fussy! But today’s project is to uncover the eponymous Benedict,

What Are Eggs Benedict?

Okay, so…given this is such a brunch favourite, I know many of you will already know exactly what Eggs Benedict entails. And all of you are quite welcome to skip to the next section.

For those who are in the dark, Eggs Benedict is a dish typically served at breakfast or brunch which consists of two halves of a toasted English muffin, topped with bacon or ham, a poached egg and Hollandaise Sauce.

Who Was Benedict?

Larousse names Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans as one of the possible birthplaces of Eggs Benedict. And there is certainly an amazing looking Eggs Benny on their website.😍 However, all the other research I have done points to New York as being the birthplace of Eggs Benedict.

Delmonico’s in New York is a contender. A regular customer, one of the Le Grand Benedict family, got bored with the regular breakfast and asked for “poached eggs on toasted English muffins with a thin slice of ham, Hollandaise sauce and a truffle on top” as a more exciting alternative.

In 1967, a letter to the New Yorker said that Commodore E.C.Benedict, a yachtsman and retired banker was the inventor of Eggs Benedict.

My favourite story, however, and so the one we are going to go with, suggests that the recipe was devised by one Lemuel Benedict in 1942 when he strolled into the Waldorf Hotel with a raging hangover and asked for “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of hollandaise”.

Instead of looking askance at him and saying in a very stern manner, “We Sir, are a classy establishment and hence not familiar with the practice of measuring our sauces, Hollandaise or otherwise in units of sex workers”, the kitchen complied and Eggs Benedict was born!

Can we just take a step out to talk about how delicious Hollandaise Sauce is?

OMG..it’s the best thing in the world. Sometimes, when I really don’t feel like cooking? I will buy a jar of Hollandaise sauce, heat it up in the microwave and just dip vegetables…asparagus, broccoli, beans, etc right into the jar for my dinner!

And do you also know that it was only very recently that I reaslised Hollandaise is just French for “from Holland”? I mean, it’s totally damn obvious when you think about it but….at the time?

The Recipe

Given it’s likely New York origins, I used the recipe from the New York Times for my classic version of Eggs Benedict.

Some variations are below.

Variations

The interwebs abound with variations of Eggs Benny. You can change the meat:

This Naughty Benny swaps out the ham for mortadella and adds an onion jam.

You can change the base:

This one swaps out the English Muffins for Potato Rosti.

You can combine it with other brunch favorites such as this Benedict BLT.

Or add some Italian Pizzazz with an Eggs Benedict Pizza.

You can also swap out the sauce

For those who like a bit of booze with their Benny, this one has a beer-based sauce.

I guess the only constant is the eggs…

Oops, scratch that. Here’s a vegan version.

A myriad of other versions can be found here

Modern Day Benedict

In my mind, there can only be one:

What’s your favourite version of Eggs Benedict?

And to whom would you dedicate a modern dish of poached eggs, ham and hollandaise sauce on an English Muffin?

Have a wonderful week!

10
Mar
2018

Rosanne Cash’s Potato Salad – Repost from October 2018

categories: Potato Salad, United States of America

Regular readers will know what a fan I am of the serendipitous find. So, imagine my joy when, in the middle of writing the post on Johnny Cash’s Chili, sorting through a huge pile of recipes I had collected over the last year or so, I found a recipe from his daughter Rosanne Cash for Potato Salad.

I felt that finding it was either a sign from the universe to make some potato salad or that the Cash family were stalking me in a really weird way.

I decided to make potato salad.

Have I ever told you how much I love potato salad?

Like LOVE it. 😍

I have CRIED when I have tasted a potato salad that looked gorgeous only to find the potato was half raw. Or the dressing was watery

That’s how much I love potato salad.

And I have incredibly high standards. So far in my life, the only ‘tatie salad that even comes close to my mum’s is my best friend Monica’s. It’s one of the reasons I adore her.

Maybe THAT’s how much I love potato salad…

Good potato salad? Friend. For. Life.

Bad potato salad? Never darken my door again!

And Rosanne Cash’s had all the hallmarks of being a GOOD potato salad. Or the one. Which is the inclusion . of hard-boiled eggs. Seriously. Mum’s potato salad has them. Monica’s potato salad has them. And this one has them. And, spoiler alert. We are now talking my top-three potato salads.

Because Rosanne Cash’s potato salad is AWESOME.

The only problem with the Rosanne Cash Potato Salad?

There was not enough of it!

Basic user error. Before making anything check your ingredients. ALWAYS check your ingredients. All of them. Even the ones where you think “Oh I always have plenty of that / those / them”

Especially those ones. Otherwise, you will go to the shops to buy celery and pickles. And come home to discover you only have three tiny potatoes. But it’s getting late and if you want to be eating this delicious sounding potato salad any time before midnight then you don’t have time to go all the way back to the store to buy more potatoes.

So…a tiny potato salad it was…

You can also do the thing….cos here’s the recipe. Just make sure you have potatoes a plenty!

Rosanne Cash’s Potato Salad

And here is he of the chilli and she of the potato salad way back in 1956!

Have a great week!

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05
Sep
2017

Tiny Waldorf Salads

categories: Apples, Celery, Grapes, Salad, United States of America, Walnuts

Is there a salad both more famous (and more mangled) than the Waldorf Salad? I doubt it. And because, pretty much since it’s inception, people have been mucking around with it, I thought I would put my stamp on it. As I have a predilection for little food, I shrank my Waldorf Salad into individual serving sizes.

Waldorf Salad – History

The Waldorf Salad was first made at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1896 and was, a huge success. The original recipe only contained apples, celery and mayonnaise The grapes and walnuts came later but are now considered integral ingredients.

The Waldorf precedes the other classic “American” salad, the Caesar, by 28 years.

The Waldorf Salad was also immortalised in an episode of Fawlty Towers. I wonder if this is the only salad to ever have a sit com episode named after it. If you have not seen this you must. It is hilarious. But here’s a taste!

So, celery, apples, walnuts grapes…in a mayonnaise sauce. Which is pretty much what mine consisted of.

So how did they manage to get it so wrong in the ’60’s?

Well, the top three reasons of what went wrong in the 60’s in general are:

Charlie Manson
Massive amounts of drug taking
Gelatine

Now,Manson may be all kinds of crazy but I don’t think we can blame him for this:

Retro Waldorf via Bon Appetit Or this (even though this is kind of pretty)

Or, Good Lord, even this:

Nope, the blame for that lies squarely with 3). Possibly with a large dose of 2) thrown in

After those horrors i totally understand why the poor old Waldorf Salad is not nearly as popular today as the Caesar salad. The graphs below show internet interest in the words as search terms.

Kind of makes me wonder why I am bothering to post on Waldorf when it’s so unpopular. Next week – Caesar Salad! And hit city!

The thing is, Caesar salad is often awful and the Waldorf salad tasted good. It’s crunchy and crisp and sweet and nutty. Nothing wrong there. The buttermilk dressing I used adds a little tang without being too cloying. It’s delicious. And easy to make. And healthy. And it’s fun to wrap up the main ingredients in a lettuce leaf like a salady sang choy bau.

What more do you need?

Go and make one now. You already know how….it’s celery, apples, walnuts grapes…in a mayonnaise sauce.

Pop it all into a lettuce leaf, wrap it up and enjoy!

[yumprint-recipe id=’98’] Have a wonderful week!

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09
Jul
2015

Mexican’t – Paul Wilson’s Cantina

categories: Book Club, Books, Cantina, Mexico

Mexican was a recent selection at the Tasty Reads Book Club. I chose Cantina by Paul Wilson for my book because it is food porny to rival Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana!

Take a look at these pictures from Cantina.

Pacific Oyster Cebiche with Melon Salsa.

Dani made this as her bring along to the discussion and they are even more delicious in real life than the picture.

Ranchero Style Beef Broth With Bone Marrow Toasts

Personally, I’m not sure about eating the Bone Marrow Toasts but they LOOK amazing!

Street Style Tostadas With Seared Tuna and Wood Grilled Vegetables.

Would it be wrong to say this just made me want to lick the page?

Gorgeous right? However, as you may have spotted, this is not your typical bean and burrito Mexican. There is not a yellow box in sight. As a Mexican Dorothy might say, “We’re not in Chipotle anymore Toto”. Cantina delivers high end, highly complex Mexican food. For instance, those “Street Style” Tostadas?

22 ingredients – minimum. But you also need a base. So depending on which of the bases you choose you can add another

7 ingredients if you use the Jalopeno and Finger Lime Crema
13 ingredients if you use the Veracruz Sauce
8 ingredients if you make the Sesame Pipian. But hold up. One of the “ingredients” of the Sesame Pipian is a Tomatillo Verde which in turn contains another 8 ingredients…so that would be another 15 ingredients.

Thirty. Seven. Possible. Ingredients. And up to three separate recipes. For “street style” tostadas. And ok, I get it, sometimes you need a lot of ingredients to get a depth of flavour and that alone would not necessarily be enough to put me off a recipe.

However, these recipes were further complicated by a lot of the ingredients not being readily available in Australian supermarkets meaning a lot of ingredients having to be bought on the internet or having to drive across town to pick them up. And then some could only be bought in bulk – hence the almost kilo of padron peppers sitting in my freezer!

Not to mention that cooking from Cantina was like going down the rabbit hole – one recipe lead to another which required another…it seemed never ending! Here is a prime example.

Heirloom Tomato Escabeche

I made this – it was one of the things I took to the Book Club Night. It’s a salad. It’s a fancy salad. It’s maybe the BEST salad I have ever eaten. But it’s a salad.

However to make this salad, as per the recipe, you need to first have made the Mexican pickles. And you also have to have made the Pasilla Chilli relish.

Then you make a lime crema base…

THEN you make the salad.

Then you collapse in a corner quietly sobbing…or….erm…you know….

I did LOVE this, it was so pretty and also incredibly tasty. But so much work for a salad. Bear in mind this would usually be an accompaniment to something else – which probably also had multiple elements. It was hard enough cooking one thing. An entire meal would have sent me loopy!

But to really demonstrate how this book just about sent my sanity to the edge and had a damn good crack at ruining my relationship you can go no further than….

Hanger Steak with Huitlacoche Mustard and Salsa Negra.

That pictures looks pretty damn simple right? It’s steak, salad and a condiment. How hard could it be?

Let me step you through the timeline of this one meal shall I?

Week -1:

Order Huitlacoche off internet.

Day of the Hangar Steak

6:30pm – Get home from work

6:45pm: Make my Latin Spice Rub. This stuff is awesome. Because you make much more of this than required, I have sprinkled this over everything since I made it and it makes everything – steak, chicken, fish, eggs, calamari – taste better. Just beware it is hot, Hot, HOT so if you don’t like it spicy, go very easy!

6:55pm – Soak the dried porcinis

6:58pm – Chop onions and garlic.

7:03pm. Open can of huitlacoche. What is in the tin looks like corn covered in snot. Wonder if you have got a dodgy tin.

7:05pm. Google huitlacoche. Realise it’s supposed to look like that. Wish you hadn’t bought it.

7:15pm. Heat oil and cook onions garlic and both types of mushrooms

7:20pm. Add huitlacoche and porcini liquid.

The recipe them says to cook for 10 minutes until the liquid has reduced to a glossy sauce. This never happened. For a start it was way too chunky – bear in mind the recipe does not even tell you to chop your mushrooms (which I did) but what I had in my saucepan after ten minutes looked like chopped mushrooms and corn covered in snot.

7:40pm. “When are we eating? I’m hungr….what on God’s green earth is THAT?

“It’s mustard”

“It looks like mushrooms and corn covered in snot. Why are you making mustard? Can’t we just have Colman’s?”

“You can’t have Colman’s, we’re having Mexican. It’s special Mexican mustard.”

“It looks revolting”.

It didn’t look great. And I don’t want to be pedantic (I so totally do) but surely…a major component of anything called mustard should actually be mustard?

And don’t even get me started on the Apricot and Mescal Aioli that contained no mescal and was not any sort of aioli I ever had.

7:45. I’m staring at a hot mess in a pan, thinking maybe if I blended it it would look a little bit more like the mixture in the picture.

7:55. After some blending with the hand mixer, we now have something that looks pretty much like the picture in the book. Which is to say, like baby poo.

I’ve now been cooking for an hour and have….a spice rub and some sort of condiment which probably should not be called mustard. Which he is refusing to eat and I’m losing interest in by the second..

Never mind. The rest is steak and salad. Easy Peasy.

8:00pm. Rub the steaks with the spice rub. That can sit for a while because now, we need to turn to page 36 to make the Latin Vinaigrette for the garnish. Yes. Even the garnish requires you to move to a different page.

Latin Vinaigrette contains 10 ingredients. Roll eyes, sigh. Make Latin Vinaigrette.

8:10. Latin Vinaigrette Made.

8:15pm. Start on the Salsa Negra.

8:16pm Turn back to page 36 to make Salsa Mexicana for the Salsa Negra

8:17pm Salsa Mexicana requires a Zesty Lime Dressing found on page 37. Sigh, roll eyes start muttering swear words underbreath.

8:20pm. : “When are we eating? ”

“Soon. I just need to make the steak. And the salad”

“I thought that’s what we were having”

“It is” This through gritted teeth.

“But…you’ve been cooking for hours…why is there no steak? Or salad?”

“Because it’s Mexican and it’s driving me insane. I just need to make this dressing first. And I really need you to be quiet.”

“I thought you just made dressing”

“I did. That was a different dressing”

“Right. So you’ve been cooking for ages. And you’ve made a mustard that isn’t even a mustard and two salad dressings? When will you cook the steak? I’m starving!!!!”

“Just. Don’t. Speak. This Mexican is doing my head in and the more I have to chitter chatter with you, the longer this is going to take.”

8:30pm Zesty Lime Dressing Made.

8:40pm Salsa Mexicana made.

8:45pm “Where’s the can of black beans that we absolutely definitely had in the cupboard?”

“I ate them for lunch…”

“But….the salad is back bean salad. How are are supposed to have black bean salad with no black beans?”

“We have white beans”

“You can’t make black bean salad with white beans”

“Don’t be a bean racist”.

“Shut up”

We didn’t have white beans. By now I was slightly hysterical. Two hours and no beans to make the bean salad.

8:55pm “I’m hungry….when are we eating?”

“Shut up, I need to think”

“I’m going to have some cereal”

“Don’t eat cereal, we’re just about to have dinner”

“A likely story…”

9:05pm. We had couscous in the fridge. I ended up making the black bean salad with couscous.

9:15pm. The steak finally hits the grill.

9:30pm. Nearly three hours later, we sit down to eat. It was good. It was really good. The couscous was fine – maybe even better than black beans. But it was steak and salad. And it had taken nearly three hours to make. And i was in such a bad mood by the time it was ready I didn’t really enjoy it on the night. Next day for lunch though? Super!

And here in lies the what I feel is the dilemma of Cantina. Two and a half hours of cooking is WAY to long for a weekday meal. Ok, you could make the rub and the dressings and the mustard before hand but that it still time spent somewhere. And for me this is not a dinner party dish either. It’s something…I’m just not sure what – it’s too complex for a casual meal but not fancy enough for a dinner party meal.

Oh, and that so called mustard? I wouldn’t even bother with that. I didn’t like the taste of it and there was enough flavour in the rub and the dressings and the other bits and bobs so that you would not miss it.
And finally…here it is:

Don’t get me wrong. It was DELICIOUS. Nothing I made from Cantina was bad. Except for maybe that mustard. But you had to work hard for that goodness.

Will I cook from Cantina again? Hmmm….Possibly. There are still a few recipes I really want to try. But I would do it on a weekend. Ideally a long weekend.

Here is some of the other stuff I made:

Jalapeno and Finger Lime Crema

Mexican Style Pickles

Loved them!

Baked Devilled Eggs with Sobrasado

I did a cheaty version of this in that I swapped in similar stuff I had for the listed ingredients such as barley wraps for the corn tortillas, pancetta and salami for the serrano ham and sobrasado, cheddar cheese for the Mahon…It was still awesome if not ~~exactly~~ remotely authentic.

Baked Devilled Eggs With Sobrasata

Chorizo with Apricot and (no) Mescal Aioli

Pumpkin Soup with Chorizo Migas

I had to buy achiote paste for this and didn’t like the flavour of it at all.

I do enjoy saying Chorizo Migas in a very bad (a la Speedy Gonzales) Mexcan accent though.

BBQ’ed Tuna Salad with Peruvian Salsa Criolla

Yummy!

Dulce De Leche Ice Cream

So Good! So, so good. Here it is with some French Apple Flan

Sangrita

Your’re meant to drink this alternating with sips of a shot of tequila. I just put my tequila in the drink along with all the rest of the stuff. Loved this!

Here is the recipe for the Spice Rub, direct from Cantina. And also serves as my Spice Blend for a Daring Kitchen Challenge MONTHS ago. And hey, I guess the Hangar Steaks cover off on their Grilling challenge!

[yumprint-recipe id=’33’] I honestly feel like cooking from Cantina once a week which is what I try to do with the Tasty Read selections almost broke me. And, if the end result hadn’t almost invariably been delicious I would have gladly tossed the book in the trash multiple times. Instead, it’s filed away in the bookshelf just waiting for the right occasion. So, just know this. If you ever come to my house and I make you Mexican food that looks lovely and casual, know that I must REALLY like you! Because that stuff is hard!

Have a great week!

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Category: North and South America

What is Caesar Salad?

I Digress

Skip over this bit if you are only interested in Caesar Salad

Who, Who Was Caesar?

The Recipe

Variations

Modern Day Caesar

What Are Eggs Benedict?

Who Was Benedict?

The Recipe

Variations

Modern Day Benedict

Waldorf Salad – History

Pacific Oyster Cebiche with Melon Salsa.

Ranchero Style Beef Broth With Bone Marrow Toasts

Street Style Tostadas With Seared Tuna and Wood Grilled Vegetables.

Heirloom Tomato Escabeche

Hanger Steak with Huitlacoche Mustard and Salsa Negra.

Week -1:

Day of the Hangar Steak

Jalapeno and Finger Lime Crema

Mexican Style Pickles

Baked Devilled Eggs with Sobrasado

Pumpkin Soup with Chorizo Migas

BBQ’ed Tuna Salad with Peruvian Salsa Criolla

Dulce De Leche Ice Cream

Sangrita

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