Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Suzee's Chicken Caesar Salad

I whole heartedly admit I based my salad on one I saw in Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home series currently playing on the Food Network. I love food porn - and the inspiration it brings so I can make my husband very very very happy!

I roasted 4 chicken legs and thighs with olive oil and a combination of rosemary, thyme and chives rubbed into the skin. I baked them at 400 for 40 minutes. they looked lucious at this point, but I thought they could use a few more minutes. I ended up adding a good 20 more minutes. My oven really is not consistent, so cook the chicken the way you normally would roast chicken.

I sliced some stale chiabata and put it in the chicken juices, and left it in the pool for a good 10 minutes while the chicken was cooking, then I move the bread and chicken to a sheet pan so it wouldn't be in a pool of chicken juices and would toast up. After another 10 minutes or so, I pulled the chicken and deboned it, and once done, pulled the bread and chopped it up.

While the chicken was roasting, I made a salad dressing - I made a paste of 3 fat anchovies and most of a clove of garlic. I added about a 1/4 cup of good extra virgin olive oil and the juice of a very juicy lemon. Then I added a tablespoon of light sour cream and heavy half cup of grated parmesean (I grated this myself with a microplane so if you use preshredded go lighter on the cheese). I also chopped 2 small heads of romain and a 1/2 container of grape tomatoes.

I tossed it along with the meat from 3 small legs all together for dinner and served it with a bottle of Pinot Grigio from Cavit (a nice inexpensive bottle, and my favorite). I topped with with roughly grated parmesean and black pepper. It was delish!