My Caesar salad

There are lots of recipes for Caesar salad, so not really breaking new ground here, but a good Caesar salad is wonderful! We have this for dinner quite a bit through summer.

Preparation

We love bacon, so this recipe is a good way to enjoy bacon and reduce your portion size. I like to cook mine in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees – this cooks it more evenly than in the frying pan. I also make my own croutons – the oven is already on, so why not make the most of it with home made croutons! I freeze two slices of sourdough bread in little bags, and just pull one out when I need. I toss a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper over the diced bread, and bake for about 10 minutes.

I like to use cos lettuce, but it doesn’t really matter – use whatever you like. Some sliced up shallots, and some slivers of Parmesan cheese and that’s basically all the preparation you need.

Assembly

You can get all fancy with the dressing, but this is a quick, simple meal in our house so I use bought mayonnaise. I toss the lettuce in the mayonnaise, and arrange on the plate (well to be honest, I pretty much just dump it in a pile in the centre of each plate and hope that the end product will look good). Then I add the bacon (which I cut up after it’s cooked) and croutons.

Next I start poaching the eggs – four people in my family, so four eggs. I boil the water, and use a spoon to create a mini whirlpool. I break the eggs into a little bowl and then tip it into the swirling water. I cook each egg individually for about 3 minutes. I have a large slotted spoon to remove them and place them on top of the salad. I add some pepper, shallots and Parmesan cheese to each plate, and it’s ready to go.

Enjoy

This meal is a bit a treat – the mayonnaise and bacon aren’t all that healthy but it does allow a tasty balanced meal with a modest portion size of meat. Besides, if you keep the serving sizes reasonable, this isn’t too bad every now and then!