RIP Caesar salad. Long live Caesar salad.
Especially when it's this one.
I’m as ready as anyone to move on from the Caesar-ification of every single thing. The salty, creamy dressing keeps showing up, even when it’s not invited. I recently ordered a Little Gem salad at a new restaurant in New York City with a dressing made from natto, whole fermented soybeans in a sticky goo. But when the table tried it, one person spoke the truth: “There’s the Caesar.”
If it feels like everything is Caesar this and green goddess, ranch, and buffalo that, you’re right. The terms are internet-quick ways to express a dish’s personality. In one caption, in one voiceover, readers and viewers can taste the dish before they actually do. “With ever-more recipes and limited space in email subject lines and social media captions, word choices [have] to be more eye-grabbing and visceral to inspire clicks,” my former boss Kristen Miglore said in an article on recipe names.
The terms are used so freely these days, they’re used even when the dish doesn’t really resemble the reference. Green Goddess dressing circa the 1920s only has one ingredient in common with the herby dressing that TikTok loved (lemon juice). The original was mostly mayonnaise and heady with tarragon and anchovies. It wasn’t even green. The name is a reference to George Arliss, the actor who the salad was first made for. He starred in the play “The Green Goddess.”
So today’s recipe is a Caesar salad, kind of. (It’s also not the “Not Just Another Chicken Caesar” from my cookbook.) By using the same components as the classic in different ways, you get to eat a wholly different salad that still has the haunting qualities of the original to draw you in.
This dressing is still sharp and savory with grated Parmesan, garlic, and lemon, but it isn’t creamy. Instead, the eggs that make the classic dressing creamy are fried until their yolks are molten. For extra crispy bits, the eggs are cooked on a bed of breadcrumbs (pseudo-croutons) and more grated Parmesan.
Instead of juicy fresh lettuces, the greens are charred, hearty, and hot. Blistering kale in a scorching skillet softens the rugged leaves and singes them in spots for a bitter edge. As you eat the gooey egg, Parmesan breadcrumbs, tender greens, and punchy dressing all together, you probably won’t even notice that you ate a full bunch of kale for dinner. That’s the Caesar hypnotizing you. Again.
