Recipe: Not-quite-Cobb-or-Caesar salad (and a home made Milk Bread bonus)

In the lockdown food delivery box I described on Wednesday there were a couple of perfectly ripe avocados, making me want to have a Cobb Salad. The snag is,  we had no blue cheese and no cooked chicken.

But it was a lovely sunny evening and there had been lots of salad veg in the box so I put together my own version of an American style chopped salad. I used Parmesan instead of blue cheese in the dressing which, along with the eggs,  gave the whole dish a taste similar to a Caesar salad.

To serve two: 

2 eggs, hard boiled and sliced

4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped, fried until crispy and cooled on kitchen paper

1 avocado, diced

1 large tomato, diced

5 cm length of cucumber, diced

1 wedge of iceberg lettuce, shredded

½ bag of baby spinach leaves, washed and dried

dressing:

¼ cup red wine vinegar

½ teaspoon Dijon Mustard

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

salt to taste

a third of a cup of light olive oil 

30g finely grated Parmesan cheese

Make the dressing by  whisking together the vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire Sauce and salt. Gradually whisk in the olive oil then the cheese. 

Mix together the lettuce and spinach, scatter the avocado, tomato and cucumber over the top and top with the sliced egg and bacon. Serve the dressing on the side to mix in as required. 

I served this with home made Milk Bread, which is a lovely light, soft bread quite unlike most home made or artisan breads - it's more like brioche than normal bread, but a lot  easier to make - as long as you have an electric mixer! Don't attempt to make it by hand, your arms will ache for days (don't ask how I know... but after my first attempt at making it I asked Santa for a Kenwood that Christmas) 

I made it using this recipe although because of the egg situation I glazed it with milk instead of using a whole second egg, so it doesn't look as dark and shiny as usual. It uses ordinary plain flour, which is getting a little easier to find, instead of bread flour, but it does still need yeast. A tip, if you are finding yeast scarce - try asking in your corner shop.  Yesterday there was none on display in our little Nisa store and mark asked when they were getting some in. The reply was "We do have some but we're keeping it out of sight because whenever we put it out on the shelves, somebody comes in and buys up the whole lot in one go!" So we managed to get a packet - hope you have some luck too!