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By Laura Stec

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About this blog: I've been attracted to food for good and bad reasons for many years. From eating disorder to east coast culinary school, food has been my passion, profession & nemesis. I've been a sugar addict, a 17-year vegetarian, a food and en...  (More)

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Caesar Pleaser

Uploaded: May 21, 2016

With all the talk about Caesar Salad last week, I decided to put up my own recipe this week. One can always play around with the ingredients in a Caesar; add carrots, eliminate croutons, use Romano instead of Parmesan, etc, because in my opinion, it is the dressing that makes an authentic Caesar. And what makes the dressing true-blue is the addition of raw / coddled egg, anchovy, and Worcestershire.

Recently, I got my hands on Col Pabst, an artisan Worcestershire made in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.



They’ve created a private stash, all malt amber-lager yum fest in a bottle, with a richer, more complex flavor than standard brands. The recipe includes new flavor ingredients such as beer and tomato paste, with a stronger tamarind essence. (Who knew Worcestershire had tamarind in it?) Make sure your pantry houses Worcestershire, and an artisan version is even better. There are so many uses for it’s unique umami kick.

Laura’s Caesar Salad Dressing

1 tablespoon Worcestershire
Dash Tabasco
Pinch dry mustard
2 egg yolks, coddled and whisked
3 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3 anchovy filets, mashed
2 garlic cloves, minced and mashed (with salt) to a paste
½ cup good quality olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients except oil and mix. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil and whisk till well combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.



On another note….
Good news at Martins Beach in Half Moon Bay.

It opened back up to the public! Not sure why, and I haven’t been there since they “cut the ribbon,” but a friend reports the gate will be open from now – October. Park just off the highway, or if you drive down to the beach, I hear there is a parking guard, and a $10 fee. Finally Coleslaw has done right (pet name for owner Vinod Khosla, given by the regulars at Rossotti’s).





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Comments

Posted by Crunchy, a resident of another community,
on May 21, 2016 at 5:49 pm

Coleslaw and Caesar - together at last!


Posted by Max Hauser, a resident of Mountain View,
on May 22, 2016 at 2:53 pm

Max Hauser is a registered user.

You might have noticed I was taken (in the previous blog) with the whole idea of bringing a "Caesar salad" to the city of the original Caesars.

Now I grew up (in the Bay Area) hearing "purists" insist that a true Caesar salad required anchovies or at least anchovy bits, but evidenly they were wrong -- that's a variation, not the original. From the same reliable reference source (Mariani) I cited earlier, "[Caesar] Cardini was adamant in insisting that the salad be subtly flavored and argued against the inclusion of anchovies, whose faint flavor in his creation [he attributed to] Worcestershire sauce. . . In 1948 he established a patent for the dressing, still packaged and sold as 'Cardini's Original Caesar Dressing Mix,' distributed by Caesar Cardini Foods, Culver City, California. . . The Caesar Salad was once voted by the International Society of Epicures, in Paris, "the greatest recipe to emerge from the Americas in fifty years." (Mariani then gives the original recipe, with coddled eggs, Worcestershire, and no anchovies.)

I happen to like including the anchovies, probably because I'm used to it.

Also, Laura, why *wouldn't* anyone know that Worcestershire includes tamarind? You're implying they never looked at the ingredients label. I think its basic definition is an anchovy-tamarind sauce (like a British cousin, or offshoot, of the SE-Asian fish sauces, or -- Italy again! -- that ancient Roman fermented fish sauce that always gets mentioned historically).

The "Col Pabst" Worcestershire sounds great. Can you get it here in the Bay Area?


Posted by Laura Stec, a resident of Portola Valley,
on May 22, 2016 at 3:23 pm

I always learn from you Max. And ME - it's ME who never looked at the ingredients in Worcestershire sauce, and I should have long ago. What a interesting combo! I love these small companies rethinking basic foods. First Sir Kensington with ketchup, and now many others, Just Mayo for mayo and now we have Col Pabst in the ring too. I had to buy from the web because it is not available here yet - at least not around the Peninsula. Maybe at Rainbow - I wonder?


Posted by KirstenWNq, a resident of another community,
on May 22, 2016 at 7:53 pm

Gosh that is a good looking dog, in your picture of Martin's Beach!


Posted by Laura Stec, a resident of Portola Valley: Westridge,
on May 23, 2016 at 8:39 am

Now KirstenWNq, that is a very famous dog I'll have you know, who asked to stay anonymous in the blog and avoid all the fuss that comes with being identified in public. That's a long way of saying, "Enjoy from afar."


Posted by pogo, a resident of Woodside: other,
on May 23, 2016 at 8:07 pm

pogo is a registered user.

I like the Caesar salad at Massimo's in Fremont. They make it from scratch tableside... just like the old days! That's a rarity!


Posted by Sheri Furman, a resident of Midtown,
on May 24, 2016 at 5:19 pm

Sheri Furman is a registered user.

According to their website Col Pabst is available at Mollie Stone's.


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