Classic Caesar's Salad

What can you cook on hot days like these? Salads, of course!

Here is a recipe for the Classic Caesar’s salad. Try serving this for supper on hot summer nights and the dishes will be wiped clean!

I like to prepare the dressing and the croutons but I leave the chicken for the end so that I can serve it warm. If you are having a BBQ, you can also cook the meat on the BBQ then add it to your salad.

Here is what you need to make enough salad for 4 persons.

To make to croutons
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 small Maltese bread cut into cubes
½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano

To make the dressing
1 garlic clove
4 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
Mayonnaise
Natural Yoghurt

For the salad
1 iceberg lettuce
1 romaine lettuce
Or 2 bags mixed salad leaves
Parmesan cheese shavings
1 chicken breast

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Toss all the ingredients for the croutons together in a bowl and spread them in a baking tray. Bake until stiff and crunchy.
2. Place the garlic, anchovy fillets in a bowl and mash to a pulp. Add the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce then stir in the mayonnaise and the yoghurt.
3. Place the washed salad leaves in a bowl.
4. Cook the chicken breast, then cut it into strips and place on top of the salad leaves.
5. Pour the dressing over the chicken and finally decorate with the Parmesan shavings.

Farfalle with Tuna and Mushrooms

400g farfalle pasta
200g mushrooms – finely sliced
1 x 400g tinned tuna in oil
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 whole garlic clove – finely chopped
2 sun-dried tomatoes - diced
Fresh parsley

It is important to make the sauce once you start preparing your pasta. As soon as your pot with boiling water is placed on the heat, place the oil and garlic in a pan.

Heat the two together until they start to sizzle and then add the mushrooms. Stir in the finely chopped parsley. You should be very generous with this and it should really be chopped very finely.

Add the tuna which needs to be strained from the oil before adding and then stir in the sun-dried tomatoes. At the point you should have already added the pasta to the water and it should have re-boiled. Add 1 ladle full of the starchy pasta water to the sauce and stir.

Once your pasta is cooked and strained stir in the sauce and add a little more olive oil whilst mixing.

Chocolate Orange Fudge Cake

Ingredients
225g margarine or butter
225g dark chocolate
200g caster sugar
Zest of 2 oranges
4 eggs
100g plain flour

Method
Start off by melting the butter and chocolate together in a bowl. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and stir the chocolate occassionally until the chocolate and the butter has melted. Now add the orange zest

In another bowl beat eggs and sugar until they are pale and fluffly. Add the chocolate mixture to the eggs then stop the whisking and slowly fold in the flours.

Do this using a scraper and mix until all the flour is incorporated into the chocolate mixture.

Pour the mixture into an 8 inch cake dish and bake at 160C for about 30 minutes. .

All ovens vary, so your cake might take a little longer to cook. Always make sure to check your cake by insterting a skewer before deciding whether your cake is ready or not. Make sure that your skewer comes out completely clean when you test your cake. Even though melted chocolate is used in the recipe, the skewer has to be clean for the cake to be cooked through.

This recipe has be previously published on Kcina ta' Christine on NET TV