Cobb salad

• 10 minutes to prepare • 10 minutes to cook • Serves 4

10 MINUTES RECIPE

 

"One night in 1937, Bob Cobb, the owner of The Brown Derby, prowled hungrily in his restaurant's kitchen for a snack. Opening the huge refrigerator, he pulled out this and that: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold breast of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese and some old-fashioned French dressing. He started chopping. Added some crisp bacon - swiped from a busy chef. The Cobb salad was born. It was so good, Sid Grauman, who was with Cobb that midnight, asked the next day for a 'Cobb Salad.' It was so good that it was put on the menu."
(The Brown Derby Cookbook, 1949)

Brown Derby closed its doors long ago, but this notorious salad lives on. Today we will prepare a simplified version of this classic salad, without raw garlic and watercress (which I do not like). If you are interested in the original recipe, you may refer to Derby's Cookbook.

It's Tuesday, isn't it? Then send your beloved to set the table, we are going to eat in 10 minutes!

Here are ingredients for the 4-serving recipe:

For the salad 

100 g lettuce
50 g chicory
50 g romaine
20 cherry tomatoes
50 g bacon strips
2 breasts of boiled chicken
3 eggs
1 avocado
100 g blue cheese

For the dressing

2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Worcester sauce
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
8 tablespoons EVO oil
a pinch of sugar
freshly ground black pepper

1. Make eggs to boil in salted water for 8 minutes. Drain them and, once they have cooled down, peel them. Cut each of them in 4 pieces
2. Wash carefully lettuce, chicory and romaine and cut them in fine pieces. Wash the cherry tomatoes and cut them in half
3. Cut bacon strips into small pieces and make them to brown on a very hot non-stick pan
4. Peel the avocado and cut it into small pieces
5. Crumble the blue cheese, and cut boiled chicken breasts into small pieces
6. Take a rectangular casserole and arrange all the ingredients in strips, trying to alternate vegetables with eggs, chicken, bacon and cheese
7. Prepare the dressing: in a bowl mix all the ingredients except EVO oil and whisk until you obtain a smooth mixture. Add EVO oil and mix well
8. Just before serving mix the salad with the Cobb salad dressing. Enjoy!!!

Nutrition Facts are listed for this recipe in the table below. Data is provided per serving.

"Cobb's midnight invention became an overnight sensation with Derby customers, people like movie mogul Jack Warner, who regularly dispatched his chauffeur to pick up a carton of the mouth-watering salad"

(The Brown Derby Cookbook, 1949)