Salad Making Workshop @ Salad Chef, Changi City Point

A green salad is a great friend to the home cook. It brings in your palette the extra dose of vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Making a bowl of salad can be quick and easy, but that’s not to say salads don’t require any effort. Last weekend, I invited 10 readers to join me in a Caesar Salad Making Workshop at Salad Chef, Changi City Point.

Romaine lettuce, Parmesan cheese and croutons are always the base of a Caesar Salad. You can add any other ingredients according to your preference. Here at Salad Chef, they also also grilled chicken and eggs on the Caesar salad.

A reader asked during the workshop, what’s the difference between grilling and roasting? Well, grilling applies direct heat from above or below, which tends to cook the meat quickly. But for roasting, it uses indirect heat and is suitable for slower cooking of meat in a larger, whole piece. Here, marinated chicken breasts are used and grilled for about 15 minutes.

After sending the chicken for “sauna”, we had a competition to see who peel the egg fastest. The process of learning how to boil and peel eggs seems simple enough. But perfecting your timing to guarantee the ideal egg texture is no joke (especially when you need to peel 200 eggs in a day). So how can you ensure the best results every time?

Here’s the trick! First, crack the top and bottom of the egg shell. Next, gently roll the cooked egg on a cutting board with the palm of your hand makes lots of cracks in the shell. It only took 19 seconds for a Salad Chef staff to peel an egg!

Romaine Lettuce is the norm for a Caesar Salad. It’s better to cut the lettuce rather than tearing it by hand because this can keep it colder and uniform pieces of lettuce makes it easier to eat. Remember to wash the lettuce and dry them thoroughly as wet lettuce prevents the dressing from coating the lettuce well.

After all the preparation work, the teams are ready to assemble their own salads. A homemade dressing is the best way to lift a salad. A homemade Caesar Salad dressing typically includes lemon juice, olive oil, an egg, Worcestershire sauce and freshly grated black pepper. But to make things simpler, you can get bottled salad dressing at any supermarkets. All of them were nicely decorated and one of the teams even make it into a heart shape!

Then comes the tossing! I typically use wooden spoons to toss salads before they are softer and less likely to crush delicate salad greens. But the best way is to toss it with your hands as it can help you gauge when the salad is evenly tossed. It is best to toss the lettuce with dressing first, before adding the croutons and parmesan. The teams are way too hungry and we decided to do it altogether so that we can enjoy the salads soon (remember, crisp lettuce is one of the hallmarks of a good Caesar salad).

Thank you Changi City Point and Salad Chef for hosting this event!