Cobb Salad

Salad

• chicken breasts2
• streaky bacon8 rashers
• eggs4
• avocados2
• cherry tomatoes300 g
• blue cheese120 g
• romaine lettuce1 head
• chives3 tbsp

Vinaigrette

• red wine vinegar3 tbsp
• Dijon mustard1 tsp
• Worcestershire sauce½ tsp
• garlic cloves1
• olive oil120 ml
• caster sugar½ tsp
• salt
• black pepper

Vinaigrette

1. 01

   Whisk the vinegar, the mustard, the worcestershire sauce, the crushed garlic, the sugar, salt and freshly ground black pepper, then whisk in the oil in a stream until it thickens.

Salad

2. 02

   Cook the bacon from a cold pan until crisp, drain and chop.

3. 03

   Put the chicken breasts in a pan, cover with cold salted water and bring to a bare simmer. Poach for 12 to 15 minutes, until there is no pink left in the thickest part, then lift out, cool and dice.

4. 04

   Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, cool them in cold water, then peel and chop.

5. 05

   Chop everything else to roughly the same small size — this is a chopped salad, and the uniformity is the whole idea.

6. 06

   Spread the chopped lettuce over a wide shallow bowl.

7. 07

   Lay the other ingredients over it in neat parallel stripes: the poached chicken, the bacon, the hard-boiled egg, the diced avocado, the halved cherry tomatoes and the crumbled blue cheese.

8. 08

   Scatter with chopped chives and take it to the table arranged.

9. 09

   Pour the vinaigrette over and toss at the table, in front of everyone. Tossed in the kitchen, nobody sees the point of the stripes.