I didn’t set out to make a vegan Caesar salad.
I just wanted to make a classic Caesar, minus the anchovies, which might actually be the most classic version of all. Did you know that the original Caesar salad apparently contained no anchovies?
I had no idea until a couple of weeks ago, when I looked up a few basic recipes before whipping up a batch of dressing. I remembered a recipe from an old Moosewood cookbook that suggested replacing anchovies with kalamata olives, so I threw a few into the mix but otherwise stuck with a pretty standard mix of flavors in an aioli-based dressing.
The result, with its strident mix of garlic, lemon and Worcestershire sauce disappointed me, however, and I ended up stirring in a little tahini in an attempt to tone everything down.
It worked and then it got me thinking that maybe I didn’t need an egg and olive oil aioli for this dressing at all. …