How to cook a caesar salad with chicken at home

Salad snack with the Italian name "Caesar" is considered one of the most popular in the world. Dish simple, but pretty tasty. To prepare the dish, you need to take into account several nuances: use lettuce leaves, crackers, parmesan and special sauce. Among the traditional ingredients of the salad - pieces of boiled or fried meat.

Today, few of the housewives adhere to the classic recipe and to add a special flavor to the salad are added other goodies (fresh, pickled, canned vegetables, corn, various types of meat, seafood).

Who came up with this salad?

The author of the snack was really Caesar. True, not the one that Guy Julius, the Roman emperor and the great military leader of antiquity. And Caesar Cardini, an American restaurateur from Los Angeles, who first served such a salad to a client in the early 20s of the 20th century, and has since introduced the dish to the restaurant's menu.

Initially, it was impossible to call it a salad in the usual sense. A pillow of Romano lettuce leaves was laid out on a plate. Top - garlic white croutons in olive oil. The main decoration was poached egg. All this sprinkled with egg yolk and parmesan, and seasoned with Worcestershire sauce. A mixture of malt vinegar, sugar, onion, garlic, salt, spices, chopped anchovy, molasses and tamarind extract. The client was offered to eat the dish with his hands.

In the late 40s, Cardini invented his own sauce mixture and even tried to consolidate his authorship. It was a piquant composition, somewhat repeating the English gas station, but already having Italian notes. The new salad dressing was very high in calories: as much as 160 calories per serving, as opposed to 20-25 calories of English sauce.

Gradually, the restaurateur began to introduce new ingredients into the dish, as many customers complained about the "emptiness" in the plate. Thus, chicken, pineapples, more high-calorie sauces, a lot of cheese and other ingredients got into the set of products.

What does the classic Caesar recipe with chicken look like?

At home, make this salad under the power of every hostess. Almost all the products that go into the dish, are constantly in the kitchen. If you are an adherent of Italian cuisine, then Parmesan cheese does not come out of use, just like traditional olive oil. A set of products divided into 2 groups: salad and sauce.

The main set of products:

• chicken breast - one large fillet
• Parmesan - 40-50 g
• lettuce leaves
• baguette or white loaf - half a loaf;
• clove of garlic
• salt and black pepper
• olive oil - 2-3 tbsp. l
• cherry tomatoes - a few pieces
• Ingredients for the sauce:
• 2 boiled hard boiled eggs
• olive oil - 100 ml
• freshly squeezed lemon juice - 3 tbsp. l
• 2 cloves of garlic
• spoon of mustard
• salt (little taste)

Culinary fans recommend to follow the Caesar recipe exactly. Otherwise, the salad will not work as it should. Consider the same cooking process step by step.

Cooking:

1. Bread cut into cubes or strips somewhere 10 mm thick. If you have a thin baguette, then it can be cut into beveled slices. In general, cut a nice bread and spread it on a baking sheet.
2. Remember, Cardini croutons had a garlic flavor. Here is how it is prepared. Pour olive oil. Crushed chive with the flat side of the knife and into the butter. Plate for 30 seconds. in the microwave. The oil will heat up a little and absorb the garlic aroma.
3. We saturate the bread with butter. Baking tray in the oven for 20-30 minutes. The temperature in the cabinet - 150-160 degrees.
4. While preparing the croutons, it's time to do a salad dressing. We get yolks from eggs. In a separate bowl, we grind them into mush. Squeeze or finely chop the garlic. His and a spoonful of mustard - to the egg. We bring to mass homogeneity. There is lemon juice and a little salt. In small portions pour olive oil, constantly stirring. Cooked sauce set aside, let insist. Before use, refueling is stirred again.
   
5. Go to the meat. If you do not want your Caesar to be too fat, then you can simply boil the chicken fillet. We will fry it, so that the pieces have a delicious ruddy crust.
6. We wash the fillet pulp, cut off the film and fat, dry the pieces on a paper towel. In general, any meat and fish before heat treatment should always be dried. Cooks say that moisture prevents the formation of a beautiful golden brown.
7. The size of the chicken pieces is desirable to "adjust" to the size of the crackers. Or fry the whole fillet, and then cut. Try not to overdry meat, achieving a ruddy crust. After heat treatment, the chicken is laid out on a napkin to absorb excess fat. Recall that before frying, the fillet must be slightly salted and seasoned with pepper.
8. You can proceed to the design of the dish. Lettuce leaves washed and dried. Separate the cuttings. Large sheets can be broken into fragments. We take a slightly in-depth plate and weathe it with lettuce leaves chaotically. The next layer is croutons and chicken. You can lay out in staggered or randomly.

Parmesan rubbed on a coarse grater, sprinkle with cheese dish. The final touch is the sauce. Gently, thin stream, pour salad dressing. Cherry tomatoes are used as a fresh supplement. Washed tomatoes cut in half and put a few things on top of the salad in different places. Classic Caesar salad with chicken is ready. We invite you to try!

Variations on "Caesar"

As we have already mentioned, it is possible to make adjustments to the classical recipe of Caesar. For example, chicken fillet can be replaced with ham, bacon or any other meat. In Italian, it turns out, if you use seafood (shrimp, mussels, crab meat, crayfish).

In the absence of green lettuce, you can use the top of Beijing cabbage leaf. In Caesar, you can add slices of chicken eggs or even quail. And how do you Caesar with red fish? Did not try? Here's how to cook it.

Composition:

• red fish fillet
• lettuce leaves
• white loaf
• tomatoes
• lemon
• garlic
• olive oil
• sauce (we already know how to cook it)

Cooking:

1. First let's do the fish. Pulp is separated from the skin, take out the bones. Salt fillet, pepper and sprinkle with lemon juice. Leave to pickle.
2. Crackers do as in the classic recipe. But you can not use oil garlic soaking. Salad leaves and parmesan prepared traditionally. Recall that the process of making sauce for Caesar, we described above.
3. We take out our marinated fish and grill it or bake it in the oven. Do not forget to lightly grease the fillet. Fried cooled fillet cut into small pieces (in the size of crackers).
4. This time we use another serving. Greens and a part of Parmesan seasoned with half the sauce, stir and spread on a dish. Next, distribute on top of the mass of pieces of red fish and crackers. Water it all with the remnants of the dressing, we fall asleep with cheese. Tomatoes are also used to decorate and enhance the taste of the dish.

In a similar way, you can make a Caesar salad with squid. Wash the carcass, gut and boil in salted water. This seafood is picky enough, if you digest the squid, it will become rubber. Nothing good! Know how to work with this product, then grab Caesar with squid.

Cooked squid cut into thin rings. Parmesan advise grate. As strange as it sounds, but the size of the cut affects the taste of the dish. It is noticed that chopped salad mixtures are inferior in taste richness to similar dishes with large cuts.

Let us return to our Caesar with squid. We take a deep dish, lay out the ingredients, lightly dressing each layer with sauce. Then gently mix with spoons for salad. A bit of sauce and parmesan on top. Caesar with seafood ready to serve!

Caesar Salad is an excellent dish for a festive table and daily menu. Depending on the set of products, it can be a very satisfying, high-calorie meal or a light but nutritious breakfast. What you need if you like to cook and are always ready for culinary experiments.