How to Make Caesar Salad - Dressing Part 1

Learn how to make Caesar Salad with this instructional video guide - Caesar Salad Dressing Part 1

Robert Nazareth: Hello, my name is Robert Nazareth from Dinner Done. Today, we are going to make a Caesar’s Salad. What we are going to show you now, is the first part, how to make the Caesar salad dressing. Start out, by separating the egg from the yolk of one egg. Easiest way to do this, is just crack the egg in two and as you pull the shell apart, let the white drip into a pan or even into the kitchen sink, because we are not going to use it. Whatever is left, you can juggle back and forth, and let it drip off, until you have got most of the white done and gone. Once you got the yolk separated, put it into the shallow bowl that you will be using to make your dressing in. Next, we are going to take approximately one teaspoon of Dijon mustard. If you plan to use more than one yolk, because you are going to serve a large number of people, the proportion would be one teaspoon of Dijon mustard to one egg yolk. Put your egg yolk and your Dijon mustard together. Taking a whisk, blend the two until you have got a uniform paste. What we are going to be making now, the base of this dressing, is pretty much mayonnaise. I like to use a light oil, instead of a heavy olive oil. In this case, I am using canola oil, but you can also use a very high quality, very light, extra virgin olive oil, if you like. Try to stay away from using corn oil or vegetable oils as they can give us slightly off-taste to your dressing. Take your whisk, and drizzle very slowly, as you whisk, the oil in to your Dijon and egg yolk mixture. Keep drizzling little by little, see, it’s a very thing stream and keep moving your whisk. As you do this, you will be creating what is known as an emulsion. You’ll see, that your mix starts to thicken up, and coincidentally, get a little bit clearer each time. Continue mixing until you have, oh I would say, about half a cup of dressing, if you plan to serve, say four people with your salad. You can get up to two cups of mayonnaise out of one yolk, if you wish. Every now and then, you might want to stop drizzling oil and make sure that you incorporate the oil, all of it, into your emulsion. This is the hardest part of making a Caesar salad folks, so once you get past this step, you’re home free. Continue to drizzle and whisk. Now, what we are going to do next, is very important, and it’s a step you really don’t want to skip. What we are going to do is, we are going to add lemon or lime juice, either one works to this. And the reason for that mainly is, if you didn’t add any kind of acid into this, like lemon or lime juice, eventually, the egg yolk and mustard and oil will separate again, and you’ll have something looking pretty ugly. Okay, that’s about enough for me. Now, as the last step, notice how it’s got a lot creamier and a lot thicker. So as a last step, I am going to make sure that I incorporate everything. I don’t have any oil or any egg or mustard floating around. And once I have got that done, you will see that we have got a pretty creamy chunky mayonnaise. At this point then, I am going to take the juice of half of a lime or half of a lemon, whatever you happen to have handy. I like to use this lemon squeezer, but you can always use a fork and your hands, too. Squeeze it in. And continue mixing, until you’ve mixed all of the lemon juice with the mayonnaise. Now, notice how we have gotten a little bit lighter, and starts to actually look like that mayonnaise you have got in the fridge, right. Except that, this one’s better.