We’ve had so many bloggers baking for International Scone Week! Please keep checking the original post – I’ll be updating the list daily and doing a round up post with all the photos on Sunday!
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I have a bit of a crush on Chef April Bloomfield.
I adored A Girl and Her Pig, written in her pedantic, insistent style and filled with glorious recipes for everything from porridge and vegetable soups to fried pigs’ ears and whole lambs’ heads…
When I found this clip on YouTube (it’s one of several in a series), I had to give it a go…
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So…how does one do justice to the perfect Caesar salad recipe?
By picking vibrant young cos lettuce straight out of the garden…
…using a still warm, freshly laid egg in the dressing…
…topping it with homemade sourdough croutons that have been
slowly dried in the oven for hours…
….and adding a few of our favourite Italian anchovy fillets.
The dressing came together in seconds with the immersion blender…
A final sprinkling of fried continental parsley to add crunch…
As instructed, I ate the salad with my hands, rubbing the dressing over each leaf before curling it around a crouton or a tiny bit of anchovy. It was so good that I made it again the following day, as I couldn’t bear to waste the leftover dressing!
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Of course, a great lunch needs a great drink, so I made April’s Moscow Mule as well…
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I’ve never seen Fentiman’s Ginger Beer for sale in Australia, so I substituted Rochester Green Ginger and soda water…
It was the perfect excuse to use one of the first limes off our tree…
Instead of crushing the ginger ice block in the food processor, I popped it into a thick plastic bag and bashed it with a rolling pin. It worked well, and the end result was wickedly good!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I know what I’m having for lunch!!! Thanks for that easy approach to a caesar dressing. The other ingredients are outside my back door.
Hope you liked it as much as we did! :)
Yum!
Oh, yes, Celia – can’t beat a good Caesar salad and love the idea of eating with hands – I love eating with hands, even quite messy food:)
Rachel, it was so much fun, eating it with my hands. I’m not sure I can order caesar salad again at a restaurant – I’ll want to eat it with my fingers! :)
With such awesome fresh goodies this would definitely go from great to awesome! Caesar salad is littlej’s party piece, she makes a huge platter and we all dig in. I’ll have to check out that book, I’ve always wanted to know how to cook a whole lambs head :) xox
Becca, you would LOVE this book. There’s a recipe for cooking suckling pig, and it says something like “arrange the pig in a Sphinx position on the tray”.. :)
Caesar salad for us for lunch today too! Thanks for sharing Celia
Hooray! We had it again on the weekend as well (garden full of cos lettuce!).
It was so simple, using the leftover dressing today. Thanks Celia for the inspiration
Thanks for introducing me to April. What a delight and her Moscow mule looks so delicious – bring on the summer.
The Moscow Mule is an absolute winner. It needs good vodka though! :)
What a delicious looking salad. I miss our lettuce in the garden! Your lettuce looks so wonderful, as does that drink.
We have lettuce for a lot of the year, but there’s a few months where it doesn’t grow, and I do miss it desperately then as well! :)
Oh I have those lovely cos leaves from you to make into a salad today! :D Great idea as I feel like salad!
So glad you liked them! :)
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a salad with my hands. Your freshly picked cos lettuce looks so good. What a lovely way to live with being able to put together something like this with your own produce and freshly baked bread – you just need a fish pond for the anchovies! xx
Hahaha…we’ve talked about aquaculture! We decided it was too expensive, but the idea hasn’t gone away completely! :)
Her radish salad with basil, Parmesan, and lemon is also fantastic.
Thank you! I’ll look out for it!
She’s fab, isn’t she? I’ve always wanted to go to her restaurant here in the city, but haven’t made it yet. I will report to you when I do! Must check out this Youtube series… I’m currently watching Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals :) PS- these scones are looking lovely so far. I might hop on, but sadly my trusty old oven (and you know what I mean when I say old) takes almost over an our to heat up! xx
She’s absolutely wonderful! I hope when you do get to her restaurant that it lives up to expectations! :)
I love a classic Caesar but have not liked some of the so-called ‘deconstructed’ versions which use the name but have little to do with the original. Had not heard of April Bloomfield either to tell the truth! This recipe really is definitive and perfect and plated in a way I can understand. Back to copy her dressing exactly :) ! Eat with hands: of course . . . almost everything solid: it DOES taste much better!
I might never eat a Caesar salad with cutlery again! :)
Wicked!! And cool! The Moscow Mule is pure fun – in fact I can imagine I would find it shriekingly good fun. Caesar salad is my favourite salad and the way you have done it looks so good – I enjoy a finger lickin’ salad and cos or romaine make that possible. I’ve never tried fried parsley – so must give that a go.
Jan, it really was sooo good – both the salad AND the drink! :)
Absolutely fabulous!
Had not heard of her but I like what I see! And as for your salad and cocktail – with the freshest of ingredients, you don’t need a list a mile long of things to cook with to produce the best tasting food :) Just about to sort out my scone recipe post….
Tanya, you’d love the book – it’s full of pigs’ ears and lambs’ heads and whole suckling pigs, as well as a myriad of other things. I love reading recipes for more unusual cuts! :)
Sounds perfect for me!
I make Caesar salad often using a similar dressing, but don’t think I’d use my fingers to eat it. I tend to like lots of dressing, so it would be a bit messy!
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Oh yes, it was VERY messy eating! But fun! :)
I must try. :)
I love Caesar Salad! It’s simpler than other salads but the taste is classic!
Julie
Gourmet Getaways
Jules, this one was really rich from all the anchovies. I was interested that there was no bacon – guess that’s not traditional! :)
Hi Celia, your salad looks good but that Moscow Mules sounds fabulous.
Just too fabulous for words, G.. :)
I lover Caesars that include anchovies, it’s the only way I’ll eat them– I am such a snob, haha. But, fried pig ears?! I need to find myself a copy of this book.
I know… :) How can one resist a book like that?
I salute your true gourmet style Ms Celia. That Green ginger and soda water is on my “check out” list and although I am never going to indulge in that glorious salad, I can appreciate it’s beauty, it’s gutsy nuances and the need to eat it with your fingers like so many other great meals…savour it, inhale it…they say that what we put into ourselves is what we “are” you are most definitely made of good things Ms Celia :)
Fran, the Rochester ginger is a wonderful drink – it’s advertised as having “the kick of two angry mules”.. :)
Sounds RIGHT up my alley Ms Celia. I love ginger and the heat of good ginger is what makes me keep coming back.
With such fresh ingredients you can’t go wrong. It sounds like a wonderful lunch(minus the anchovies). None of the lettuce seedlings are growing for me at the moment. Where are you finding all these great cookbooks Celia:)
Jody, I’ve been lucky lately – so often cookbooks disappoint me, but the April one and the David Tanis ones have been absolutely fantastic. I think April has a vegetarian cookbook coming out later this year as well!
Thanks for the heads up Celia
I’ll keep an eye out for it:)
Thanks for the heads up Celia. I’m always on the look out for new recipes:)
Caesar… my husband’s favorite… thanks for an easy one… sue
womenlivinglifeafter50.com
Thanks Sue! Enjoy! :)
I had a brief addiction to a bottled Caesar salad dressing sometime in my twenties and yours looks about a million times nicer! xx Jo
I know what you mean – I could eat this dressing with a spoon! :)
I’ve never eaten a salad with my fingers but now I want to. The description of your salad made me swoon.
Maureen, you should try this! It’s great fun! And delicious too.. xx
Now that’s a Caesar salad! I could see having that with dinner just about every night. It’s funny you mention a Moscow Mule since my daughter was saying that she thought she might have those as her special bride’s drink at the wedding. I’d never heard of them before and now it’s popping up everywhere. I’m going to have to make you a Bostonian though Celia – when we really like something we say it’s WICKED good. I know you’re more proper with wickedly but in case you ever make it over here to the states, let’s work on it…wicked good, wicked good….
Wicked good, wicked good – I’m saying it in my best Charles Winchester from MASH Bostonian accent… :D
All right Celia! Don’t forget too that you drive your cah and pahk it.