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Caesar’s Caesar Salad
Pati Jinich, Javier Plascencia
186 ratings with an average rating of 5 out of 5 stars
186
1 hour 40 minutes (including 1 hour’s chilling)
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Bring a pot of water to boil, and salt it well. Cook the Chinese broccoli until tender, about 4 minutes. Scoop the greens out with a skimmer, and dry well. Keep the water boiling.
Cook the noodles according to the package directions. As soon as they’re drained, return them to the empty pot, off heat, and dress them with 6 tablespoons of the caramelized-scallion sauce, or to taste. Season with salt, if desired.
Divide the noodles into bowls, and top with the Chinese broccoli, the chicken (or whatever protein you choose) and the eggs. Drizzle oyster sauce on the Chinese broccoli, and season the eggs with a few drops of soy sauce. Top with a few pinches of julienne ginger or pickles, and serve immediately.
I am clueless about noodles. Are these regular Italian noodles, or are they some kind of Asian noodle? Thanks.
In Shanghai we have a common dish called 葱油拌面 (cong you ban mian),w hich is scallion oil noodles. The scallion is chopped into short strips rather than pureed, and the scallion is fried until brown and crispy. After that, we set the scallion aside and add a mix of dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and some sugar to the oil, and cook it down (common technique in Chinese cooking). This produces a very flavorful and concentrated sauce--1 spoonful is enough for ~2 servings of noodles.
Maybe "shiitake"?
I was disappointed with the caramelized scallion sauce too. It tasted of toasted grass with a vague onion flavor--rather unforgetable! And I love caramelizing regular onions so I'm not unfamiliar with the concept. My best guess at what went wrong was including the green portion of the scallions. Any suggestions?
Try cooking dried angel hair pasta in a quart of water with 2 tsp baking soda. When the pasta is cooked, drain, RINSE, and proceed. https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/baking-soda-ramen-noodle-spaghetti-h... It’s not perfect, but...
Here’s a link to the carmelized scallion sauce: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019308-caramelized-scallion-sauce?a... Page Recipe Card®ion=scallion&pgType=tag&rank=3
This was good, and different. Not to die for. The recipe for the scallion sauce was goofy. Why in the world would I use a cup of oil in a dish for two? I understand they don't think we would use all the sauce, but I don't need more stuff sitting in my fridge, waiting for some occasion that never comes. I cut the oil in half, and it was still way too much. The carmelized scallions were tasty, though. Two tablespoons of oil might be plenty, and 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.
Forgot the slivered ginger at the end, but no matter. We found the recipe superb, particularly the different flavors, temperatures and textures: tangy onion sauce, sweet oyster sauce, salty soy sauce... Crunchy broccoli, soft eggs and noodles and crispy shiitakes... Hot noodles and room temp broccoli, eggs and mushrooms. Looking forward to using the leftover onion sauce as a condiment in the next several weeks.
Made this exactly as recipe described. Spinach worked well for the greens - remember it’s important to dry the greens when finished cooking. Angel hair from the fresh section of grocer was lovely. Added a couple pieces of roasted garlic to each serving.
I haven’t made this yet, but I’m going to try it with rice noodles, because I’m always looking for recipes that I can adapt for my gluten intolerant daughter.
I'm thinking it doesn't matter..... fresh noodles = happiness!
I tried this with leftover Chinese egg noodles. I'd cooked up a batch thre day before, took them out and stir fried them. Really liked the results. Next time I have leftover egg noodles I'll try it again but for breakfast with a fried egg instead of hard boiled.
I got a little too excited adding the scallion sauce and my first edition of this was almost inedibly salty. Had to make a second batch of noodles and add them to the first one in order to dilute the salt content. However, final result was very tasty, especially with some asparagus and ginger. TL;DR: a little scallion sauce goes a long way!
I was quite impressed with this recipe as were my guests and spouse. I had a bit of the green portion of the scallion but ended up chopping some of it for a garnish which worked out great. I make my own pasta which I believe is a key element here with this recipe. Will definitely do it again.
I would guess that the heat was too high under the scallions. Caramalizing is a slow, gentle process.
This is very good. I used ''Max'' suggestion below which detailed how to make the sauce in the Shanghai fashion, It was utterly delicious, thank you so much Max. That change to the way of making the sauce is what elevates the dish from a 4 star to a 5. And I topped it with the crispy fried scallions.
Use Frances Lam's Ginger Scallion sauce with this
I made this with a poached egg, mushrooms and kale sautéed with sesame oil and red pepper, and with kimchi and ginger. It was delicious. I love the scallion sauce. I’m excited that I have more sauce- will definitely be making this again soon!
The scallion sauce did not impress so it made this dish unimpressive as well.
I used rice sticks and, after soaking them in warm water and draining them, I stir fried them briefly with the sauce and the greens (I used chard). I added the other ingredients on the plates - pickled onions and jalepenos, leftover sirloin and the soft boiled egg. It worked well. I think next time I might just leave the sauce with mostly the caramelized scallions and just add a very few raw ones at the end.
Very good. Used one package of hakka noodles, one bunch of broccoli (steamed), about 12 cooked shrimp, and 1/2 the carmelized scallion sauce. Sauteed garlic and ginger in a bit of oil, added the steamed broccoli and shrimp to heat. Mixed cooked noodles with all of the sauce and put shrimp/broccoli mixture on top with the halved soft boiled egg. Added both soy and oyster sauce. Worth doing occasionally. A bit heavy and oily.
Was unable to find the broccoli so I substituted for baby bok choy and I was going to be cooking for someone with a shellfish allergy so I didn’t use oyster sauce. Instead I sautéed the greens and a mix of mushrooms (shiitake, king oyster, enoki) with soy sauce, mirin, a little sugar, and garlic. Feels like I made an entirely different recipe but the scallion sauce was delicious! And the meal was a hit :)
The scallion dressing took about one hour to caramelize but was delicious once it got there. Excellent dish.
3 stars. Just ok flavor. Easy preparation
The caramelized scallion sauce is delicious in this dish, but also drizzled over pork roast, roast chicken, and vegetables. Enjoyed the sauce over ramen!
I ended up turning this into a stir-fry with some bok choy and hoisin instead of oyster sauce (which did make it pretty rich). The scallion sauce didn't add much, but it also didn't detract.
I'm not sure what we did wrong (followed the directions exactly). This was probably the worst NY Times recipe we've ever done.
It's great that you've made recipes freely available during COVID, but what's frustrating about this one is, the crucial caramelized-scallion sauce recipe is only available by subscription. What a tease!
I understand yr frustration, but the NYT needs revenue to continue doing its phenomenal work. It and the WaPo have done an incalculable amount of good during the unprecedented tumult and norms-shattering of the past 4 years. Just google for a recipe with the same title, read the candidates, and decide which sound good to you.
This was absolutely delicious. Instead of chinese broccoli I cooked bok choy in garlic and ginger and topped that with a little oyster sauce. Added pickled red onions too. Will absolutely make this again.
This sauce looks like the picture and tastes amazing! After a thrilling lunch of ramen, veggies, and this sauce, I tried it on a piece of fish. It was the perfect taste to make the forgotten, frozen lump of cod appetizing. Thank you!
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