Cobb Salad

If you go to any diner or hotel in California, one item they should have on the menu is Cobb Salad. By judging how well--or badly--they make it, you can judge the caliber of the restaurant. The best Cobb Salad I've been served is at the Lanai Coffee Shop at the Town and Country Hotel in San Diego, where the chef added hearts of palm to the list of classic ingredients. The worst Cobb Salad was served at the IHOP outside the Anaheim convention center. I had to use the pictures in the menu as visual aids to convince the waitress that yes indeed, Cobb Salad included chicken (they gave me sliced up turkey sandwich meat after I complained) and more than that, used a bowl straight out of the dishwasher so the lettuce was warm and wilted. Do not go to IHOP for anything except pancakes and eggs. They have raised incompetence to the level of evil.

That being said, let me give you the recipe (and anecdote) from the Brown Derby cookbook from 1949. I will admit I have not had the Cobb Salad at the Brown Derby, in any of its incarnations, so I can't say how it stacks up to the ones I've had or the ones I've made myself, but it's best to start with the classics, so here's the recipe, and after it follows my commentary on possible variations:

"One night in 1925, Herbert K. Somborn was chatting with Abe Frank, the manager of the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel, and Sid Grauman, of Chinese Theater fame, and as idle chatter goes remarked, "You could open a restaurant in an alley and call it anything or you could even build it in the shape of a hat and if the food and service were good the patrons would come flocking." To achieve the standards set for this little Derby, Somborn, the husband of the celebrated cinema star, Gloria Swanson, selected a young friend who had been raised in the restaurant business. This was Robert H. Cobb, who was the combination food checker, steward, buyer, cashier, and occasional cook when the first Derby opened.

During its first four years the original Little Hat Derby had added only two items to its menu-a salad and a cake. The salad was almost an accident. Bob Cobb, growing weary of the steady hot-dog-hamburger diet, found an avocado in the icebox. He chopped it up, along with some lettuce, celery, and tomatoes, plus a strip of bacon and some salad dressing, and had that for his dinner. Several days later he tried it again, adding other ingredients which he had purchased on his way to work: breast of chicken, chives, hard-boiled egg, watercress, and a wedge of Roquefort cheese for the dressing. And that's how the Cobb Salad was born."

• 1/2 head of iceberg lettuce
• 1/2 bunch watercress
• 1 small bunch chicory
• 1/2 head romaine
• 2 medium-sized tomatoes, peeled
• 2 breasts of boiled roasting chicken
• 6 strips crisp bacon
• 1 avocado
• 3 hard-cooked eggs
• 2 tbs. chopped chives
• 1/2 cup fine grated imported Roquefort cheese
• 1 cup Brown Derby Old-fashioned French Dressing

Cut finely lettuce, watercress, chicory, and romaine and arrange in salad bowl. Cut tomatoes in half, remove seeds, dice finely, and arrange in a strip across the salad. Dice breasts of chicken and arrange over top of chopped greens. Chop bacon finely and sprinkle over the salad. Cut avocado in small pieces and arrange around the edge of the salad. Decorate the salad by sprinkling over the top the chopped eggs, chopped chives, and grated cheese. Just before serving mix the salad thoroughly with French Dressing. Serves 4-6.

Comments found on the web say that the Brown Derby's version is unique for being very finely chopped, the pieces no more than 1/4 inch. I'll also mention that the watercress and chicory are things I haven't had, mostly because I don't usually buy the first, and the second isn't something I've seen at the grocery store. Unless it's tossed in with the spring greens mix, in which case you could buy that and have something reasonably similar.

Now as to the variations I've seen. Most chefs have realized that a Cobb Salad is a beautiful dish for presentation. With a round bowl or plate, the ingredients are placed in quadrants, arranged for color and contrast. When I make it, I make certain to put the blue cheese next to the bacon and the avocado next to the chicken, simply because the flavors go better together for the first introductory bites before you mix the whole thing up. With an oval plate, the ingredients are best done in stripes. Other arrangements are of course possible.

Now for substitutions. The main item to substitute is the dressing. I'm not that fond of French dressing, not caring for garlic, so what works well is blue cheese dressing (since there's already blue cheese in the salad) or lemon-herb dressing. Likewise, while Roquefort cheese is indeed wonderful, a nice Danish blue works just as well and the same with any of the other members of that family of cheeses.

The chicken is also often substituted from the original recipe. Nobody boils chickens these days, so it's just as effective to use breast meat from a roast or barbecued chicken as it is a boiled one. In fact, since it's chopped, your really don't have to use breast meat. I've taken a whole roast chicken of the type you get at the grocery store, eaten a portion hot for lunch, then removed all the meat later for Cobb Salad. I've also grilled boneless skinless chicken breast meat with a light honey and tarragon glaze (honey, tarragon, salt, pepper) and used that for the Cobb Salad, which was both delicious and attractive. Similarly, turkey can be substituted for chicken, so long as it's large chunks of meat, not slivers of sandwich meat (a curse for every one of your pancakes, IHOP!).

The Red Lion inns in Oregon had two variants on their menu, listed as Steak Cobb Salad and Shrimp Cobb Salad, with a small steak or a handful of shrimp in place of the chicken. Both of these are pleasant variations, but taste more like variations, not Cobb Salad, which requires chicken or turkey for the classic taste.

Nothing else can be substituted, IMHO, excepting you can use turkey eggs instead of chicken eggs (if you can find them), and conceivably you could use turkey bacon in place of regular bacon if you were having to be kosher or avoid red meat.

Now for additions. The Lanai Coffee shop at the Town and Country in San Diego, as I said, used hearts of palm. These are great and a big thumbs up for them. I'm fond of adding chopped radishes, since they're pretty, and likely add the pepper flavor that would be in the original from the watercress. Jicama or cucumber also work well as an addition, as do mushrooms. Marinated artichoke hearts are also a good idea, though don't go overboard on additions. As with everything, much of it is what you have in the fridge, and what's on sale and fresh at the market. Add too many extra ingredients and you lose the taste, and while it may be an excellent salad, it's no longer a Cobb.