A Deconstructed Caesar
The thing about cooking for just yourself is you have to eat the same thing multiple times in a row or you have to subdivide recipes into fourths or sixths or whatever, and honestly, the whole thing is just seemed like such a hassle that I had eaten mostly popcorn, yogurt, and mission figs for the two weeks prior to finally going to the grocery store in earnest. I looked through the first chapter of Simply Nigella, which is titled “Quick and Calm”, two things I am not, and decided I’d make the thing on page 1: a kinda deconstructed Caesar salad. I set out to acquire romaine, my third-favorite brand of tinned anchovies (#hotgirlshit) and the half dozen eggs that are the hallmark of single people everywhere.
At some point, a dating expert told men that the grocery store is a good place to meet women. I don’t know who this was or where he (let’s be real, no woman would suggest this) came up with it, but it was widely adopted as gospel, making walking around the produce section with a basket full of small amounts of lettuce and no wedding ring is a extremely annoying proposition. This combination is heady for recently divorced dads everywhere; it gives you away as an ideal target for the exact kind of low-stakes flirtation someone, somewhere suggested and they get to benefit from the fact that men are rarely socialized to do things like devote mental energy to knowing how to meal plan or how to vacuum a sofa or even that a sofa needs to be vacuumed. Basically, these dudes are looking for someone to solve two problems for them: curing their intense loneliness and freeing them from the prospect of having to actually care for themselves now that they’re without women to do this for them. Or at least, that’s certainly how it feels.
This is obnoxious for the obvious reasons that many things about being a woman are obnoxious (I am just trying to get gas/go through TSA security/go to Lowe’s, please leave me alone, and no, I would not be prettier if I smiled, I can assure you) but also because now I have to advise someone completely clueless on the distinctions between curly and Italian parsley.
So, right, now I’m at the grocery store, trying to re-stock my kitchen since I left a lot of it behind. I decided to survey the dry pasta options. It was there I found him, squatting in front of the ramen section, looking for all the world like a white-tailed deer caught in the high beams of an F-150.
“Hey, um, could you tell me the difference?” He is holding udon noodles in his left hand, soba noodles in his right.
I grimaced a little; I’m an inveterate know-it-all and cannot just let someone be wrong about anything, but I also really, profoundly, did not want to help. I was on my own journey of being sad in the grocery, and here he is, reminding me that other people have their own problems. Fortunately(?), there’s a global pandemic, so my mask hid the lower half of my face. “Are you making soup or salad?”
“Soup.”
I point at the udon and move along.
“Thanks, I’m just…”
What he was “just”, I won’t know, because I moved on to the olive oil aisle, then went to my car and cried. I have already taught, like, a dozen men how to cook, and now I have to do that all over again because apparently this is what’s left out there. After being profoundly rejected, you just imagine that there’s no one out there worth having that’s going to want you, and having to help a grown man learn the differences between distinct types of Japanese noodles on this, my very first trip to the grocery store, was discouraging to say the least. Now I needed to go home, cook something just for me, and contemplate this not super-fun realization.
What was not discouraging was the entirety of the “quick and calm” section of the cookbook. They’re almost all things that serve one or two people, and come together without a lot of fuss. I’ll probably share my thoughts on the vast majority of them as this project wears on. This little salad. This. Little. Salad. It’s so good! And it feels fAnCy! And it’s just for me! I tweaked the process a bit to better suit the solo diner, but I have eaten this several times a week for lunch very consistently since I first made this. It’s also easy to double or triple or quadruple if you wanted to serve this as a first course at a dinner party. It isn’t something I could make super-beautiful for photos since wilted lettuce is, you know, wilted, but I am mildly obsessed with it. The best part is you probably have almost all the components at home right now, which means you can just dash into the vegetable stand and get lettuce and get on with your day.
A Deconstructed Caesar
adapted from Nigella Bites
serves two
Ingredients:
1 romaine heart, washed and halved (I usually get a whole head, take off the outer leaves and save those for lettuce wraps later in the week, but do what feels right)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
4 oil-packed anchovy fillets, chopped
1 lemon (zest and juice of one half, the other half cut in half again for serving)
2 tablespoons of cooking oil (I do 1:3 canola to olive and mix up a batch every so often)
2 eggs
grated parmesan
To Do:
Put a cast-iron grill pan on your stove top and turn your burner on high. On another burner, put a frying pan on a medium-high setting. Let it get good and hot, then pour the cooking oil into the frying pan.
Mix your olive oil, garlic, and anchovies in a small bowl. Pour half of this oily goodness over the cut side of each romaine heart half. If it’s just you, put half away and wrap up half the lettuce now; this is a perfect lunch for tomorrow and it’ll be even faster then. Place the lettuce into the grill pan gently and cook for five to ten minutes, or until it is a bit wilted and charred. Remove from heat and dress with the reserved lemon juice and zest.
While that cooks, crack your eggs straight into the frying pan cook until you get to your desired consistency— I think this calls for a runny yolk, but I know some people get freaked out by that.
Plate the lettuce, then top with a fried egg. Grate a generous amount of parmesan on top and serve with a lemon wedge and piece of toasted baguette.