Last weekend the sun shone, the sun cream came out and lunch was had in the garden on both days of the weekend, it was glorious, the large garden table and chairs have been dusted off and brought out and I can not wait for the summer gatherings to starts, all you need to add is great food and you have the perfect day, so when Hubby made this chicken caesar salad in the week I just knew that I had to get it onto the blog as it is most definitely a keeper.
In fact this has to be the best chicken caesar salad that I have ever had, you all know that I would not make a bold claim like that lightly, but once you have tried it you will know exactly what I mean.
I have never had a chicken caesar salad with so much flavour, cooking the chicken, bacon and croutons together is just genius, then layered up with the crisp lettuce, gorgeous homemade tangy sauce it is just amazing, to the point that there were no complaints from anyone, every little bit was eaten up, a very rare moment in this house, you know what they say, ‘you can not please all the people all of the time’, but with this recipe we did.
It is so nice to have so many different salads on my blog, as soon as the sun is out, the BBQ is out ! We spend as much time as we can outside and eating al fresco is one of our favourite things to do, like our kitchen table, our garden table has hosted many happy gatherings from breakfast, lunch, afternoon teas, dinners to parties, the tables in our family hold many many happy memories and here is to making many more.
Buon appetito
Serves 6
1 loaf of ciabatta bread (about 250g)
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
4 chicken legs, preferably higher welfare, skin removed
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 thin slices of pancetta or smoked streaky bacon
¼ of a clove of garlic discarded
4 anchovy fillets in olive oil
30g fresh Parmesan cheese, plus a few extra shavings to serve
1 tablespoon low-fat Greek yoghurt
Juice of 1 lemon
Extra virgin olive oil
2 or 3 Cos or Romaine lettuces, outer leaves discarded
A couple of handfuls of mixed leaves (like radicchio, rocket and red chicory) we didn’t use these as we find them to bitter.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6
Tear the ciabatta into thumb-sized pieces.
Pick and roughly chop the rosemary leaves.
Place the chicken legs and the pieces of torn-up bread into a snug-fitting flat baking tray.
Sprinkle with the chopped rosemary, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Mix with your hands to make sure everything is well coated, then lift the chicken legs up to the top, so they sit above the bread (this way the bread will soak up all the lovely juices).
Pop the tray into your preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the chicken is nicely cooked (you can make your dressing while you wait).
Take the tray out of the oven and drape the pancetta or bacon over the chicken and croutons.
Put the tray back in the oven for another 15 to 20 minutes for everything to crisp up – your chicken legs are ready when you can pinch the meat off the bone easily.
When they’re cooked, remove the tray from the oven and leave to one side for the chicken to cool down slightly.
To make the salad:
Peel the garlic.
Finely grate the Parmesan and drain the anchovies.
Pound the garlic and anchovy fillets in a pestle and mortar until you have a pulp.
Add the Parmesan, Greek yoghurt and lemon juice.
Pour in three times as much extra virgin olive oil as lemon juice, whisk well and season your dressing to taste.
Pull the chicken meat off the leg bones and tear up roughly with the croutons and the bacon.
Wash your salad leaves. Tear up the salad leaves and toss them with the chicken, croutons, bacon and creamy dressing.
Using a speed peeler, shave off a few pieces of Parmesan, if using, and scatter these over the salad
Serve hot or cold
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