What do you make to feed 50 hungry hashers? Caesar salad for 50!
The hash got rained out yesterday . . . oh, all right, a few diehards proably hashed, so it’s more like I got rained out . . . but if 50 hashers had hashed and were looking for something good to eat afterward, I’d have been ready with this whiz-bang hash-tested recipe from Bill McAuliffe of the La Jolla Hash House Harriers. What, you don’t like salad? There are hundreds of other great HHH party and on-after recipes on-line at the Half-Mind Cookbook.
Ingredients
- 8-9 lg heads fresh romaine lettuce
- 4 cups plain salad oil (doesn’t have to be olive oil; the original wasn’t)
- 4-5 lg heads (not cloves) of garlic
- 1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
- 1 1/2 lbs grated Parmesan cheese
- 4 lg lemons
- salt and fresh ground pepper
- 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
- 5 whole fresh eggs
- 1 lg long loaf French bread or sourdough (or about 2 qts ready-made garlic flavored croutons)
- 2 cans anchovies (optional)
Directions
Three days before you’re to toss the salad, break the heads of garlic into cloves, peel and chop the cloves finely and dump them into the oil in a large jar and leave to soak at room temperataure. The oil will gradually assume a garlic flavor. To prepare the croutons, cut the french loaf into 3/4″ cubes. Put them in large metal mixing bowl, shake garlic powder over them and put in an oven at about 200 degrees for an hour or so until the croutons are a light golden brown and crisp. Bag them for later.
To prepare the lettuce for bringing to the Hash, strip the roughest outer leaves from the lettuce, then chop off the bottom core and about 1 1/2″ from the coarse tops of the heads. Then slice the heads crosswise about every 2″ and pull apart into bite sized pieces. Wash lettuce and run it through a salad spinner or dry well in towels. Mix with the prepared croutons and store in a couple of large plastic bags (be sure the lettuce is dry).
To prepare dressing, squeeze enough fresh lemon juice into the garlic-flavored oil until you can taste a slightly lemony flavor in it. Then dash the vinegar into it until you get just a suggestion of vinegar taste – not too much. Then dash it with the Worcestershire sauce until you get a tad of “darkness” on the palate.
Tossing salad at the Hash Down-Down: Bring a big container. I like to use the bottom drawer from my fridge. It’s 20″ long, 14″ wide, and 7″ deep. Dump the lettuce-crouton mixture into it, perhaps keeping out about a third of it for a second tossing later. Drop 2, maybe 3, whole eggs on the lettuce and toss it around until the leaves are coated with egg. Then toss the garlic/oil/lemon dressing into it, saving 1/3 for the second tossing if you’re not doing it all at once. Then shake it generously with the Parmesan and toss some more. Add salt and ground pepper to taste. If you want to be fancy you can throw in a can or two of finely chopped anchovies in olive oil. This is great for anchovy eaters. Trouble is, lots of people don’t like them. If you do this, go light on the salt.