Last week I travelled to New York. It was a completely unplanned journey to see a close friend; he and his family live an hour?s drive from New York.
The New England area is beautiful and you could almost feel the trees about to burst into their spring life. Much of the countryside is showing the devastation caused by cyclone Sandy last year. It really is quite dramatic.
I ate at a variety of places including some up market restaurants in New England, a couple of steak houses in New York and of course American diners. I?m not the first to notice the incredibly large serving portions in the US. Most times I was served enough food for two. Meals are often served with fries and you really have to watch the amount of food you eat.
The American diner is a wonderful tradition. I ordered a cheese burger, fries and a chocolate milk shake; it was really good simple fare. The steak places in New York were amazing. One had dried aged steak as a display in the front window. It was a cool room with hundreds of sirloins from which to choose. I ordered the smallest steak on the menu and it was enormous. Served with French fires and beautiful asparagus, the meat was perfect.
The restaurants in New England are similar to ours. People dress for dinner. I asked my hosts what I should wear on one occasion; they mentioned it was casual so I put on some casual trousers and a polo top. Everyone in the restaurant was wearing a sports coat and tie and the women were dressed to the nines.
The menu was incredibly extensive and had everything from Maine lobster to Russian beluga caviar. I ordered a calamari entr?e and a Cobb salad with blue cheese dressing. The calamari was cooked in a seafood bisque with chilli and lime and was delicious.
The highlight, however, was a simple Cobb salad with blue cheese dressing. The interesting ?food history? website describes the origin of the Cobb salad as follows.
?One night in 1937, Bob Cobb, then owner of The Brown Derby, prowled hungrily in his restaurant?s kitchen for a snack. Opening the huge refrigerator, he pulled out this and that: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold breast of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese and some old-fashioned French dressing. He started chopping, added some crisp bacon and the Cobb salad was born.?
The salad I had was served with eye fillet of beef instead of chicken. It was beautifully put together and I was surprised how well everything combined.
On the flight from LA to Melbourne, I started talking to my fellow traveller thinking she looked familiar. Turns out she was a customer of ours and lived ? you guessed it ? in Torquay!
Cobb salad with blue cheese dressing
Ingredients
200g crumbled blue cheese (use half in dressing and crumble remainder in salad)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
4 rashers bacon, chopped
2 eye fillet steaks
Cos lettuce, chopped
Cherry tomatoes, halved
1 avocados peeled and chopped
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
Method
Process dressing ingredients in a food processor until well combined. Cook bacon in a large nonstick fry pan over medium-high heat until crisp, about five minutes. Transfer bacon to paper towel and pour off all but one tablespoon fat from skillet. Pat beef dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Cook to your liking. Combine lettuce, tomatoes, remaining cheese, beef, and dressing in a serving bowl. Top with salad with crisp bacon, avocados, and eggs.
Source: http://www.surfcoasttimes.com.au/entertainment/foodanddrink/2013/04/26/farm-food-nice-salad-cobber/
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