Home Made Recipe for Caesar Dressing & Croutons

When I notice that I needed to harvest some of my romaine because they were growing to closely I decide to finally try to make my own caesar dressing and croutons. I have always wanted to do this but never tried so I figured if I am making the effort to grow romaine I might as well make the effort to make my own dressing.

Croutons

Ingredients:
ciabatta buns or bread
oil
2 garlic cloves
salt to taste
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese

Start off by cutting your Ciabatta into large bit size cubes, this type of bread can be found at most groceries stores and is a drier bread with large interior holes. Then add a few glugs of oil to a pan and turn on the heat. Once it is hot add two whole, halved clovers of garlic.


When the garlic has lightly browned remove and set aside for later use. Now add the bread cubes to your flavored oil and toss until nicely browned. Lastly mince one of the browned garlic clovers and add it back to the croutons along with the parmesan cheese and salt. Toss and let cool well you are make the dressing.



Caesar Dressing

Ingredients:
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 reserved, browned garlic clove
1-2 anchovy fillets (Optional)
1 tablespoon grey poupon or dijon mustard
2 egg yolks
1/2 - 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
pepper to taste
3 tablespoons grape seed oil or any light flavored oil
parmesan cheese

In a large bowl add salt, garlic, anchovies and use a fork to grind the ingredients into a fine paste. I omitted the anchovies because I ended up purchase sardines by accident, all through I am not a fan of anchovies they are authentic in Caesar dressing and apparently does not make the dressing taste like fish.



Add the mustard, egg yolks, 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice and pepper to the paste and then use a whisk to incorporate well. Now it is time to make an emulsion, with your whisk in one hand and your oil bottle in the other start drizzling the oil into the bowl, whisking briskly to incorporate. Continue this until the dressing is the thickens of typical dressing, approx. 3 tablespoons of oil.


Once the dressing is to the desired thickness, taste it to check for tartness, if it needs a little more add the other 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice and whisk in. Lastly add Parmesan cheese to taste and mix in.

(thickness reference & of course tasting)

Now you can toss your romaine right in your dressing bowl, serve on plates, then top with the homemade croutons, crispy bacon and I also add grilled chicken to make it a whole meal.