Seasonal Bites

Our take on a classic Caeser salad, hold the anchovies.

You’ve heard me rabbit on about the joy of salads many times on here. I’ve lost count of the amount of lunch and dinner times I have craved a crispy, crunchy bowl of delight with an acidic dressing. Caeser salad is up there with one of my favourites. My first job as a chef was in the kitchen at a global hotel chain who serve it on every menu worldwide, we were asked to do a bit of research on where it came from, perhaps not where you would expect. No association with Julius Caeser, in fact it was invited by accident by an Italian American chef called Caeser Cardini short of ingredients in a restaurant in Mexico. A happy accident in my mind.

Some of the best I’ve had are from Honest Crust pizza in Manchester, they use high quality anchovies, in fact high quality everything, and I can just manage half of one with a pizza. The other a slight wild card from Winson Bakery in Brooklyn which was huge, served on a baking tray, and had black and white sesame seeds and red pepper flakes garnishing it. I wanted to create an anchovy free version to serve at Isca that still had the same umami, savoury flavour.

The most important element is not the anchovies but instead the crisp, juicy bite of lettuce smothered in the rich savoury dressing, the crunch of the crouton and the gratings of parmesan style cheese. Ours has the addition of pickled raisins just to satisfy my desire for acidity and actually the plump raisins add an extra dimension of richness.

So to get the savoury palatability you need to delve into all the salty, rich flavour givers in your store cupboard. Capers, miso, soy sauce, roasted garlic and Parmesan.

Miso Caeser dressing

3 egg yolks

100ml neutral oil (like sunflower)

100ml olive oil

4 cloves garlic, roasted in oil

2 tbsp capers chopped + brine

2 tsp soy sauce or tamari

2 tsp dijon mustard

2 tsp miso (brown rice or white miso work well)

Start by separating your eggs and putting the yolks into a medium sized mixing bowl with the dijon mustard and whisk together. Mix the oils in a jug and trickle the oil in constantly whisking to emulsify, you must add the oil slowly to prevent it from splitting. When you have added all the oil and it has thickened up add all the other ingredients, give it a taste and season with salt if needed, it might not require any as the miso, capers and soy are natural seasoning. A squeeze of lemon is good here if you have one to hand, some acidity to balance out the savoury. Feel free to add a bit more miso if you feel the need. Take the umami as far as can handle. Not just a good dressing, this also tastes great in a sandwich with boiled eggs or with some asparagus dipped into it.

Read on for the full recipe for the Caeser salad.