23… 23 times I gave it a try to order a Caesar Salad in a non-ex-pat-oriented-food hole. :fume:
Sure I will find the one and only CS in Alleycats or Carnegies etc, but I am not as “gourmand” to travel 1 hour to get there for some improved rabbit food.
Objective: Teach Taiwanase “chefs” poeeeehaaaa :roflmao: how to make a REAL CS
Need 1: The one and only ingredient list (but WHAT is the one and only?)
Caesar is dead and it aint a Walldorf salad…
Need 2, some fine Forumosian who can translate it in English pe-lease
Plan: Order try-out nr 24 and so on while holding a few copies in my jacket, if start shouting, yelling, even let them loose face while handing over the recipe with a big grin .
Expectation: Get away with no “would be CS” charged and expecting they will do better the next time I step in.
Wanna join?
And after this one, we will start with the Belgian Fries…
If you can find achovies/anchovy paste and lemon juice (or just use a real lemon - never tried that) then just make it at home. I think you would have to buy about 10 heads of romain though because I’ve only seen the heart of the lettuce in supermarkets. That could be a little pricey.
I found most Caesar’s back home pretty lame except for in Lebanese or hoity toity restaurants where they make it from scratch at your table.
I was making mine in a Cuisinart blender back home. Way back I was pretty good at making it from scratch, but found that a wooden bowl was the best to make the dressing in.
They all suck because a Caesar salad is exotic Western food, and the people here have never eaten a real one and so don’t know how to make it. Just like other exotic foods here - believe me, the ‘Sichuan’ food here is a joke: I think some of it tastes pretty good, but it is certainly not authentic.
I’ve found the Taiwanese to be very good at making food that LOOKS like it’s supposed to. I guess they figure if it looks right, it must taste right :loco:
Don’t know if this will help or not, but you can buy powder (made by McCormick) and add water. It’s sold at Costco, along with the pepper, special salt, taco seasoning, chili powder, etc. I haven’t tried it, but that might be an option.
In Tainan, there is a small Western food store that sells all kinds of salad dressing (the brand is “Wish-Bone”) and they have Caesar, plus a lot of other good things.
Remember that Taiwanese people prefer food that has “no flavor, …but a little bit sweet.” That’s why it’s so hard to get decent food here. You’ve probably heard people say “Zhe ge hen xiang!” (This food smells good.) They think food should not have flavor, but smell good. That’s why it’s hard to buy salted peanuts. Every thing has to be “smelly”. Go to 7-11, for example, and try to buy good peanuts. They are all bland peanuts with “5-spice flavoring” or something like that. Putting salt on anything in Taiwan is a sin.
My biggest piss-off with Taiwan salads is that they don’t cut anything into bite-sized pieces. You get your salad. Then, after over 5 minutes of hacking away–it’s ready to eat. This is even true at TGIFriday’s. Then there is always the corn kernels or raisins to make sure that it’s “a little bit sweet” for the Taiwan taste.
So far, I think that TGI Friday’s Caesar salad is 85% good. Alleycat’s, of course, is 100% good. I haven’t tried belgian pie’s Caesar salad, but it sounds amazing.
There used to be a restaurant sort of catty-corner from Dan Ryan’s called Fresco that had pretty good Caesar salads. It closed down several years ago, however. Anybody remember it?
Correction:
I checked at Costco the other day and the powder made by McCormick was not “Caesar”, but “Blue Ranch” or something like that. In GaoXiong Costco, all those powders are directly facing the bakery area on the non-refrigerated side (south side).
I also think I’ve seen great big plastic bottles of Caesar dressing at Costco. If I got one of those, it would take up too much space in my fridge. I’d be eating Cs every day, to try to hurry and get rid of it. Have you tried Jason’s? I haven’t been there for over a year, and I wasn’t looking for it before. I don’t know if they have it or not. A lot of their stuff is “vegetarian” or something. I hate that.
Yeah, great. I forgot about Dan Ryan’s. Their salad is good, but it’s too big for me. I like to go to a restaurant and order more than one thing. At DR, I order one thing and I’m full. The plate their salad comes on is about the size of a bus wheel.
I googled for dressing recipes and most say either mayonnaise or eggs, crushed garlic, salt, pepper, Worchestershire sauce :-|, lemon juice, parmesan cheese and others. One even said to add 6 drops of Tabasco sauce, and another said to add dry mustard powder. Google for the amounts, of course.
If anybody makes a good one, please post your recipe!
Anway, I used to make one then changed to another. It’s actually Julia Child’s mayonnaise recipe with garlic and anchovy paste (or an anchovy).
Here goes:
one raw egg
anchovy paste (tsp and 1/2 or whatever) or one anchovy
1/2 tsp salt
one garlic clove
1/4 tsp dried mustard (don’t want too much)
TBsp lemon juice (Real Lemon brand)
Cup of Oil
If you have a Cuisinart-type blender then it’s the best.
First blend the garlic until all is chopped.
Stop blender
Add raw egg, anchovy, salt, mustard, lemon juice
blend for 15 seconds
At the 15 second point, add the oil and keep blending without stopping for about 30 seconds.
This makes a creamy Ceasar’s.
Anyway, something like that. I might’ve gotten the 15 and 30 second thing mixed up. I used to make it by hand in a wooden bowl like in the fancy restaurants, but only used a half-cup oil. Haven’t made it in a long time, but use to make it all the time. Really good.
Don’t need Worcester sauce, tabasco or pepper. Pepper doesn’t hurt.
The above are the measurements to the best of my memory. Haven’t made it in over 3 years. Could’ve been a TBsp and 1/2 of lemon juice. Try it. I made an awesome Caesar’s.
Besides that, all you need is Parmesan Cheese and maybe some bacon bits and some croutons. Don’t use processed bacon bits though. Yuck. Kraft parmesan is perfect.
start shouting, yelling, even let them loose face while handing over the recipe with a big grin .
ok, ok, one on the house for this tasteless joke … :roflmao:
