Hail, Caesar

MONITOR:GETTING TO THE bottom of the real essence of a dish is often a challenge. What is a stroganoff really? Meat, spices and cream certainly, but where should the balance lie – how creamy and how intense should the spicing be? Caesar salad will be a favourite over the coming months, but now that it has become such a staple on restaurant menus, here's a reminder of what a good and proper one should contain.

While I am not claiming the following as definitive, you might see why it impressed me. It was an early summer afternoon and I was sitting on the balcony at the Ritz in London. I ordered Caesar salad and what followed was pure theatre. A waiter arrived with a trolley and made the salad there and then, from tearing the leaves to mashing anchovies into raw egg and whisking in the oil.

He stopped short of frying off the croutons, but there it was in full and plain glory; thickly coated cos lettuce leaves with croutons on top. He asked if I wanted pepper and then left us to it. The dish was a delight; light, but with a punchy, meaty dressing.

I have virtually given up ordering Caesar salad. The first problem is the lack of anchovies, an essential ingredient – not to lend fishiness, but to add weight, a meaty quality, depth and body. The Romans used fish sauce right from the start and with good reason. How can you make Caesar salad without good anchovies? Good anchovies are not wildly expensive. Anchovies that are cured properly don’t taste of salt but of anchovy, and for all its tiny size, an anchovy is pretty steak-like, umami in the extreme.

I like Caesar salad because of its lightness. Adding chicken, I just about understand, bacon less so. But both together? Why all that protein when what you are really after is something light. Steak and Caesar, roast chicken and Caesar. They are completely different.

Tradition suggests using cos lettuce, but fashion often cries out for little gem. That it is crisp and buttery with plenty of wrinkles to capture that meaty dressing seems all-important. And something with enough body so it will not wilt under the strain.

And now for the dressing. Reach for the jar if you must, but there is nothing to beat mixing raw egg yolk and oil by hand. Health officials stand aside, you don’t know what you are missing. My favoured method is to use a pestle and mortar handed down from my mother some years ago. Its weight means less work for the cook, as it rolls naturally while slapping the egg yolk and oil together in what still is, for me, one of the great science applications of cooking.

Restaurants have a habit of shaving Parmesan over a Caesar salad not because it is the best way to do it, but to assure us that it is not that old cardboard powder from containers that for years we thought was Parmesan. For a good Caesar, the cheese needs to be freshly grated and to go into the dressing – this is the whole point. The challenge is to balance the Parmesan against the anchovies.

So as temperatures start to rise and the days get longer there is plenty of time to perfect what is such a classic dish. And if you are going to add chicken, season and fry it off as close to eating as you can. It makes a lot of difference. As for the bacon, if you insist on using it, make it dry-cure, thinly cut and crisp. It can bring a salty tang where anchovies never should.