Sunday, February 8, 2009

Cobb Salad

Wow. Sorry for the hiatus. Despite sky rocketing advertising revenue and followers joining in droves, economic woes have impacted the Pork Pile budget, making posting that much more difficult.

A few weeks ago, I ate the last of the bacon. After the sandwiches, carbonara, etc I was pretty bacon'd out. That might not seem possible... but it happened. Five pounds of bacon is a lot to eat in a week+, even for me. So to kill the last of it, I whipped (literally.. see below) up some cobb salad. What better than salads with 1000+ calories?!

Someone once told me about the 'discovery' of ranch dressing. Apparently some folks somewhere near San Luis Obispo invented a salad dressing that was incredible, but perishable if not refrigerated. Since salad dressings are in the non-cold part of grocery stores, they had to compromise their recipe and change it to make what we currently know as Hidden Valley Ranch. It was still so delicious that it was still a big hit.

I'm too lazy to confirm whether this story is true... and I really don't know if I heard it, or just made it up. Anyway, I decided to try making homemade ranch for my Cobb salad.

Ingredients:

1 cup Mayo*:
1 egg yolk
1 cup olive oil*
Juice of one lemon
Salt
Pepper

Directions:
Mix the yolk with the citrus. Drizzle in the oil slowly, whip the shit out of it till it looks like mayo.
The beginning
I used a whisk and not a food processor or mixer. This was a mistake. I thought it would be more legit or somehow make me more manly. It wasn't and it didn't. If you have a food processor/blender/mixer... use it and avoid the trouble.
My shoulder is probably about to fall off now.

Mayo. !

*Listen: Way too much olive oil, and it ended up overwhelming the taste of the mayo in the end. Next time I will definitely be using 50 percent vegetable oil.

Ranch:
1 cup mayo (above)
1 cup buttermilk
Some dill seeds
Garlic powder
MSG salt (yah, I said it)
Pepper
Cayenne (little bit)
Oregano
Other spices that might be good

The makings of the ranch.

Directions:
Mix together.

The ranch.

Salad Construction:
Bacon
Spinach
Chicken
Avocado
Hard-boiled egg
Cheddar cheese
Croutons

My bad for the blur..