COOKING WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS : COBB SALAD by VIVIAN WACHSBERGER
RECIPE : COBB SALAD by VIVIAN WACHSBERGER
Vivian Wachsberger
ccSCOOP Guest Food Writer
When I was in my twenties—a million years ago—I went to Los Angeles on business and was taken to the Brown Derby for lunch. My recollection of that lunch is embedded in my food memory bank. I was served a Cobb Salad. It came to the table untossed and laid out like a beautiful mosaic—chicken, avocado, blue cheese, tomato, egg, and bacon—all cut into cubes and sitting on a bed of lettuces. You could eat it ingredient by ingredient or toss it yourself if you were very careful.
Recently I watched an old episode of ILove Lucy on YouTube. In it, Lucy and Ethel are at the Brown Derby and are starstruck by William Holden, seated in the next banquette, who orders a Cobb Salad, one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. Seeing that old episode of Lucy inspired me to intensify my search for the perfect Cobb Salad—a Cobb Salad worthy of the name—or make my own.
Lately I find that salads are called “Cobb” if they have blue cheese, chicken, and a hard-boiled egg cut in quarters. Two versions of “Cobb Salad” I had recently had slabs of chicken and the avocado was emulsified in the dressing. Neither was laid out like a mosaic.
So I was anxiously looking forward to trying the Cobb Salad at the new Hollywood Brown Derby in Albany. Disappointed again. Lots of lettuce, cherry tomatoes split in half, and the remaining ingredients sloppily presented. Not my dream salad by any means.
The original Cobb Salad was invented one night in 1937 by Bob Cobb, then owner of the Brown Derby, when he raided the restaurant’s refrigerator, looking for something to eat.
My invention is not an exact replica, but it comes closer to what I remember than any I have eaten recently in restaurants, diners, or cafés.
Enough salad mix to cover a large platter—you should have, at a minimum, romaine, frisee, watercress, and any other lettuces you can find—torn into small (not miniscule) pieces
2 nice-sized tomatoes, cubed
4 turkey cutlets, broiled and cubed
2 small avocados, cubed
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
6 strips of bacon (I used turkey bacon), cooked crisp and crumbled
A bunch of chives, chopped fine
Arrange the lettuces on the platter so that they form a nice bed for the rest of the ingredients. Place the cubed chicken in lines to form a cross, leaving where they meet for the bacon. Put the avocado, blue cheese, egg, and tomato in the spaces left. You could also make wedges of each of the ingredients. Sprinkle chives lightly over the salad and serve with dressing.
DRESSING
Combine the following ingredients in a blender or whisk in a bowl.
