CHICKEN CAESAR SALAD

One of the bars in our village changed hands last winter and is now a very popular bistro style restaurant called Brody's, serving excellent pizzas, lasagne, burgers and salads.  My absolute favourite salad is their chicken Caesar salad.  After a few of those I wondered why I never make it at home and thought it was time I did.  My version is similar to the one they serve.

The chicken ready for poaching.

I now make it quite often using leftover roast chicken or a poached chicken breast, although you can of course buy packs of cooked chicken breast which do the job very well.  You can also cook the chicken breast in an air fryer, adding a few spices if you like, which takes about ten minutes at 180°.  

One poached chicken breast makes plenty of salad for the two of us or would make a starter for four.  I doubt this Caesar salad would pass muster with the authentic salad police but it's a formula we enjoy.  You can obviously omit the ingredients you don't fancy or add other things you like, such as a bit of chopped cucumber.  Some recipes suggest adding bits of crispy bacon which sounds very tasty but I haven't strayed that far yet!

You can also poach the chicken from frozen which is very handy.  I frequently freeze chicken breasts individually, bagging them separately from a large pack from the supermarket, to thaw out one at a time for future use but they work perfectly well from frozen here, just taking a few more minutes to cook in the poaching liquid.

The salad ready for the dressing.

The thing that makes it a Caesar salad as opposed to just chicken salad is the dressing.  I have in the past used home made Caesar dressing based on this recipe here which contains no anchovies.  It came in very handy for a guest who was allergic to most kinds of fish.  Mostly though I use shop bought Caesar salad dressing and have found Heinz readily available in France and very good.  Some others are a bit too thin and not creamy enough.

For the croutons I break up into chunks the dried slices of baguette sold in a local supermarket.  Such things are readily available here for people to serve as apéros with patés or numerous other spreads.  You could make your own or buy packets of cubed croutons (or leave them out).

Since first writing this post I have attempted to make my own croutons by simply drying out some thin slices of yesterday's baguette on a baking tray in the oven part of our wood burner.  It seemed to work!  The temperature was about 200°C and they were in for about ten minutes, turning them over once, until a nice golden brown and crisp.

One thing that is worth the effort is making sure you have the right kind of lettuce, such as iceberg or romaine.  It needs to be crispy and somehow it doesn't work with the floppy kind!  

Ingredients

For the poached chicken

1 skinless chicken breast

1 medium carrot, peeled 

1 stick of celery, washed

1 fat clove of garlic, peeled 

a few stalks of fresh parsley or a pinch of dried parsley

For the Caesar dressing 

2 tblsp mayonnaise

a squeeze of lemon juice or  ½ tblsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp mild mustard such as Dijon

a splash of Worcestershire sauce

1 small clove of garlic, grated

1 tbslp grated parmesan (shop bought ready grated is fine)

For the salad

a chunk of crispy lettuce, washed and shredded (not too finely)

a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

a few stoned black olives, halved

½ a red onion, peeled and finely chopped (or use a spring onion)

¼ of a red pepper, de-seeded and finely chopped 

a handful of crisp croutons 

1-2 tblsp grated parmesan

Method 

To poach the chicken breast, roughly chop the carrot and celery and put them with all the other poaching ingredients into a medium saucepan.  Add enough water to cover the meat, season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat to a simmer immediately and cook for 15 minutes until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

Lift the chicken out of the liquid and set aside to cool.  You can discard the liquid and veg or use them to make homemade soup.  When the chicken is cold cut into chunks.

For the Caesar dressing, put all the ingredients into a small bowl and mix together, adding extra ingredients to taste.

To assemble the salad put everything into a large bowl, add the chicken and enough dressing to just coat the salad - don't drown it.  Mix thoroughly.

Serve with crusty bread or, if feeling indulgent, a bowl of chips.

Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a starter.

SMOKED HADDOCK GRATINS

In France there is a chain of frozen food shops called Picard.  Their range of foods goes from basic stuff, like peas and green beans, through to luxury items.  Our favourite purchases include their croissants, which cook from frozen in eighteen minutes, their salmon fillets, which are not cheap but occasionally on special offer, and twin packs of scallops in chardonnay sauce which are a bit pricey but utterly divine as a starter.  These little gratins also come in reusable ceramic dishes, always a bonus in my book.  We have frequently seen little piles of them for sale at village brocantes - the French rarely throw anything away that they might get a few euros for! I have hung on to mine and by now have collected enough of the little blue dishes to feed quite a crowd!

After treating ourselves to another scallop gratin starter I thought I really ought to look for a recipe for something similar that would make a tasty starter without the hefty price tag.

I spotted a recipe for a smoked haddock gratin on a lovely blog which you can see here and which gave me the idea for my starter.  I used frozen spinach which comes chopped and mixed with a little crème fraîche - a combination that I’m not sure if it’s available in the UK but any fresh or frozen spinach would do the job.  I left the quantity I wanted in the fridge to thaw overnight which made it easy to drain off excess liquid.  

The rest of the recipe is really just an assembly job.

They were perfect little starters, quite rich with all the cream and cheese but very tasty and not too filling! Definitely good for a dinner party.  Next time, instead of smoked haddock, I might try a mixture of prawns and smoked salmon - the little packs of diced smoked salmon or trimmings that you can buy would be ideal.

You can find more recipes for the smoked haddock that I used, and other smoked fish, on the manufacturer’s website here. There are English and French versions.  

UPDATE: I made the gratins using smoked salmon trimmings and prawns, which were delicious.  I also made a couple using chicken and chorizo for someone who was allergic to most fish and they were pronounced delicious too.

Ingredients

5 blocks of frozen spinach in crème fraîche, thawed, or equivalent, or a 200g bag of fresh spinach

1 x 140g smoked haddock fillet, skin removed

6 small knobs of butter

6 dessert spoons half fat crème fraîche

3-4 tblsp grated gruyère cheese

3-4 tblsp grated parmesan

6 slices of a large tomato

2 tblsp fresh breadcrumbs made from 1 slice of white bread

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C / 200° fan / gas mk 7.  Put six small gratin dishes or ramekins on a baking sheet.

First make the breadcrumbs.  Tear a slice of white bread into pieces and drop into a food processor.  Process until you have fine crumbs.

If using fresh spinach wash and cook it for a few minutes until just cooked then chop it.  If using frozen spinach make sure it's completely thawed.  Press out any excess liquid and share between the gratin dishes or ramekins.

Cut the fish into small pieces and sit them on top of the spinach.

Dot the fish with a small knob of butter and spoon some crème fraîche on top.  Sprinkle with the two grated cheeses and place a slice of tomato on top.

Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and bubbling.  Serve immediately.

(As the dishes are straight from the oven you may want to serve them sitting on a heatproof plate or dish so as not to damage your table, placemats or tablecloth.  I served mine on a small glass plate protected from the heat by a pad of folded paper serviette.)

Serves 6.