Family Famous Spinach Salad

Now I know why everybody loves it but no one wants to make it! It's washing the spinach that is such a lengthy process, especially when you are having a dinner party for 10, and don't have a salad spinner!




I remember this salad at my husband's family gatherings, his mom would always make it. As I learned later - everybody always asked her to make that particular spinach salad. I remember tasting it for a first time, and realizing why. It was just delicious! Sweet and tangy dressing with celery seeds and red onions complements the fresh spinach like nothing else. Few bacon bits and hard boiled egg just make all come together in a perfect way.
The dressing is the key. It has to be made one day ahead or overnight, so all the ingredients have time to infuse their flavors and make this incredible flavor.

Original dressing recipe calls for:

1 small red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup of sugar (or less)
1/3 cup vinegar (cider, white wine or red wine vinegar)
1/3 cup vegetable/canola oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. celery seeds
1 TBS. Dijon mustard

Put all above ingredients to a jar or a plastic container with a lid, cover and give it a good shake. Refrigerate overnight before serving. This makes about 1-1 1/2 cup of dressing, serves about 10.

For a salad, to assemble before serving:
1 large bag of spinach, washed
3 hard boiled eggs
1/2 cup of bacon bits

Toss all salad components with the dressing, let sit for few minutes before serving. Do not put all the dressing on the salad, as it might be too much, the spinach leaves needs to be just barely covered with he dressing. It will taste too sweet if too much dressing is added.




This is the original salad, but believe me - with this dressing the possibilities are endless. One Sunday afternoon I made a batch of the dressing, so we could have a salad for couple of days during the week. I did not want to eat the same salad every day. On Monday I mixed it with mixed greens, chopped pecans and some blue cheese. On Tuesday, I made spinach salad with fresh raspberries and feta. Wednesday - we had mixed greens, spinach, green apple, cranberries and feta cheese.... and Thursday - I made a salad with chopped romaine, olives, chicken, tomatoes and blue cheese - it was a hit!

As you can see - it works great with lot of different combinations.

Caesar Salad

I was just in Mexico-Cabo San Lucas for our honeymoon and one of the nights we had dinner at the beach restaurant called "The Office". I was pretty surprised when the server mentioned caesar salad as a house specialty, and we decided to order it before dinner. Few minutes later two guys come by with a huge tray full of stuff, and at first I didn't realize that he was about to make their famous caesar dressing. It was like a mini show, anchovies, crushed garlic, egg yolk, mustard, parmesan, lemon juice, Worcestershire ... some tossing and turning, and few minutes later we had a plate of whole romaine leaves smothered in the best caesar dressing I have ever had in my life. And I didn't think anything about it, even though it was kind of weird that they would serve it in Mexico. All my life I was convinced that Caesar Salad comes from Italy.... so one day I decided to google it - and what do I find? Caesar Salad was actually originated in Mexico in 1920's. And the name does not come from the Caesar (emperor), but it was named after it's creator Caesare Cardini, who was an italian-born mexican. Cardini had a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico and there he invented this dressing. Romaine lettuce leaves were served whole and hand tossed with the dressing by the chef. Cardini family trademarked the original recipe in 1948, and made it widely available. Original Cardini recipe did not include anchovies. The list of ingredients according to the original recipe:

• romaine lettuce
• olive oil
• mustard
• fresh crushed garlic
• salt
• fresh ground black pepper
• wine vinegar
• lemon juice
• Worcestershire sauce
• egg yolks
• freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• freshly prepared croutons

I personally made the caesar dressing one or twice, using Tyler Florence recipe from his Ultimate book. I don't think I loved it as much as the one I had in Mexico. I am researching a good recipe, and hopefully it will be worth of posting it on Basic Taste.