This episodes recipes caught me a little off guard--first, there is a recipe for a salad dressing. Next, there is a recipe for a salad. I concluded, wrongly, that I could use the dressing on the salad. Nay! The salad recipe is complete with dressing. The first one we tried was th
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Hail Caesar Salad. Caesar salad--simple enough, eh?! Not when you're making everything yourself. I am a personal fan of the caesar-salad-in-a-bags in the produce section. But, I suppose I really should expand my horizons in this arena. Besides, Alton says that people have really butchered a simple salad. I refuse the accused of such a thing...so here goes. I got the day old bread on the clearance shelf at my local grocer. It's already day old there....and, it's cheaper. HELLO! So, I sliced the bread, dried it out, and tossed it with some garlic-infused olive oil. The one problem we did run into with this recipe, is that we don't have a mortar and pestle for food preparation.
It's now on the lists of "needs" for our kitchen! We used the back of a spoon against the side of a bowl. As Alton points out in the book--there is really no substitute for a mortar and pestle, and the spoon-bowl contraption worked like crap! So, I just smashed the garlic as much as possible, and left it with the oil in the pan. It worked well enough, in my opinion because the croutons were the BEST part! Anyway...we made the salad, raw eggs and all. I didn't pay much attention to the recipe ahead of time, so we had waaaay too much salad for the two of us, but it was good. I think I was a little shy with the salt. I added what I thought was enough, but it was begging for more upon first taste.
So, a little bit more, and BAM! Oh, wait...that's a different chef. The croutons really were the best part of this whole recipe. There were some leftover that we stored in a zip-top bag at room temp. We've eaten them several times since then! Overall--I think this recipe cured my opinion of
salad-in-a-bag syndrome. But, I will probably still use the dressing-in-a-bottle....or more likely the other recipe from this episode:
Veni Vedi Vinaigrette. We used a shaker bottle to make it. After discovering that the salad recipe had its own built-in dressing, we stored the dressing at room temp until the next day, when we had a tossed salad (with more croutons, of course) topped with this vinaigrette. It was pretty delicious. And, it makes a good bit that we still have a little on hand. It's also made of things that I always keep around, so that makes it even easier to throw out the bag...and bottles that I'm so accustomed to.
e Hail Caesar Salad. Caesar salad--simple enough, eh?! Not when you're making everything yourself. I am a personal fan of the caesar-salad-in-a-bags in the produce section. But, I suppose I really should expand my horizons in this arena. Besides, Alton says that people have really butchered a simple salad. I refuse the accused of such a thing...so here goes. I got the day old bread on the clearance shelf at my local grocer. It's already day old there....and, it's cheaper. HELLO! So, I sliced the bread, dried it out, and tossed it with some garlic-infused olive oil. The one problem we did run into with this recipe, is that we don't have a mortar and pestle for food preparation.
It's now on the lists of "needs" for our kitchen! We used the back of a spoon against the side of a bowl. As Alton points out in the book--there is really no substitute for a mortar and pestle, and the spoon-bowl contraption worked like crap! So, I just smashed the garlic as much as possible, and left it with the oil in the pan. It worked well enough, in my opinion because the croutons were the BEST part! Anyway...we made the salad, raw eggs and all. I didn't pay much attention to the recipe ahead of time, so we had waaaay too much salad for the two of us, but it was good. I think I was a little shy with the salt. I added what I thought was enough, but it was begging for more upon first taste. 
So, a little bit more, and BAM! Oh, wait...that's a different chef. The croutons really were the best part of this whole recipe. There were some leftover that we stored in a zip-top bag at room temp. We've eaten them several times since then! Overall--I think this recipe cured my opinion of
salad-in-a-bag syndrome. But, I will probably still use the dressing-in-a-bottle....or more likely the other recipe from this episode: Veni Vedi Vinaigrette. We used a shaker bottle to make it. After discovering that the salad recipe had its own built-in dressing, we stored the dressing at room temp until the next day, when we had a tossed salad (with more croutons, of course) topped with this vinaigrette. It was pretty delicious. And, it makes a good bit that we still have a little on hand. It's also made of things that I always keep around, so that makes it even easier to throw out the bag...and bottles that I'm so accustomed to.
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