Tonight I decided to make shrimp Caesar salad for dinner. For some reason, I didn't feel the need the make the dressing (i.e. I'm lazy), so I decided to buy it, as many people do. Not wanting to spend 5 bucks on a bottle of nastiness, I searched ye olde internet in search of some help. I checked eGullet, Chowhound and simply did a google search, but to no avail. Everyone liked something different. Some people swore by Girards, others claimed Newman's Own was king, still others touted the original, Cardini's, was the best (he invented it, so it has to be the best, right?) Without any real parameters to go on, I decided to do a Cook's Illustrated-style "best of" comparison. But since I don't have tons of money to spend on salad dressing, and I can only eat so much in one sitting, I have come to the conclusion that it would be easiest to try to do it one bottle/brand at a time. So, here is part one in my 435-part series, Better Know a Dressing.
As I am monetarily impaired at the moment, I decided to see what was available at my local grocery store (which happens to be a Vons) and also what was cost-effective. The only real rules I stuck by were that I wanted it to be a creamy dressing (as opposed to a cheesy or "grainy" dressing; also no vinagrettes) and I was going to look more in the refrigerated section than the shelf-stable one.
Once in the store, I realized they only had 2 brands of refrigerated Caesar dressing, so that made my decision all the more simple. One was a store brand (which, other than a few extreme exceptions, I tend to steer clear of) and Marie's, which is a pretty well-known brand. Also, a few people on the intarwebz gave it the thumbs up, so i decided to try it. There were actually not one but two Caesars by Marie's, a "Caesar" and a "creamy Caesar". Since I went into it looking for a creamier dressing, I grabbed that one. Incidentally, although the same brand and in the same section, they had two entirely different containers which I thought was a little weird.
Just so you can be enthralled with all of this, I also picked up romaine lettuce hearts, some eggs (I decided to add some hard-boiled eggs to the salad, as well as a "vine-ripened" tomato. What can I say, I'm fancy like that), and garlic bread. Yes, I bought garlic bread. My girlfriend hates croutons. Also, I'm lazy. Leave me alone.
I got home, cracked open the bottle and gave it a taste. It was definitely creamy. Kind of like mayonnaise. I checked the ingredient list. The first two ingredients were soybean oil and eggs. So yes, I just bought mayonnaise. The other "classic" Caesar ingredients, like anchovies (which aren't supposed to be in caesar at all, but that's another show), Parmesan, and garlic were all in the "2% or less of the following ingredients" section of the list. Not wanting to be thwarted by a bottle of fancy mayo, I added some lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, shredded Parmesan cheese, quite a bit of black pepper (freshly cracked, of course) and garlic salt. I didn't want to chop garlic; shut it.
After all of my fancy culinary tinkering, I had something that resembled Caesar dressing. Which was nice in the end, but it sort of defeated the purpose of buying the dressing in the first place. I'll just add stuff to some mayonnaise if I want to make this again. But I won't be doing that, of course, because I now need to test yet another brand. Which probably won't happen for like a month. I don't really think I need to explain why.
As I am monetarily impaired at the moment, I decided to see what was available at my local grocery store (which happens to be a Vons) and also what was cost-effective. The only real rules I stuck by were that I wanted it to be a creamy dressing (as opposed to a cheesy or "grainy" dressing; also no vinagrettes) and I was going to look more in the refrigerated section than the shelf-stable one.
Once in the store, I realized they only had 2 brands of refrigerated Caesar dressing, so that made my decision all the more simple. One was a store brand (which, other than a few extreme exceptions, I tend to steer clear of) and Marie's, which is a pretty well-known brand. Also, a few people on the intarwebz gave it the thumbs up, so i decided to try it. There were actually not one but two Caesars by Marie's, a "Caesar" and a "creamy Caesar". Since I went into it looking for a creamier dressing, I grabbed that one. Incidentally, although the same brand and in the same section, they had two entirely different containers which I thought was a little weird.
Just so you can be enthralled with all of this, I also picked up romaine lettuce hearts, some eggs (I decided to add some hard-boiled eggs to the salad, as well as a "vine-ripened" tomato. What can I say, I'm fancy like that), and garlic bread. Yes, I bought garlic bread. My girlfriend hates croutons. Also, I'm lazy. Leave me alone.
I got home, cracked open the bottle and gave it a taste. It was definitely creamy. Kind of like mayonnaise. I checked the ingredient list. The first two ingredients were soybean oil and eggs. So yes, I just bought mayonnaise. The other "classic" Caesar ingredients, like anchovies (which aren't supposed to be in caesar at all, but that's another show), Parmesan, and garlic were all in the "2% or less of the following ingredients" section of the list. Not wanting to be thwarted by a bottle of fancy mayo, I added some lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, shredded Parmesan cheese, quite a bit of black pepper (freshly cracked, of course) and garlic salt. I didn't want to chop garlic; shut it.
After all of my fancy culinary tinkering, I had something that resembled Caesar dressing. Which was nice in the end, but it sort of defeated the purpose of buying the dressing in the first place. I'll just add stuff to some mayonnaise if I want to make this again. But I won't be doing that, of course, because I now need to test yet another brand. Which probably won't happen for like a month. I don't really think I need to explain why.
