The simple beauty of Cobb salad

They do salads differently in America. Caesar salad, Waldorf salad, even their egg salads and potato salads: they’re big, they’re gutsy and often they’re the main event, not an afterthought shoved to one side. This is never more true than when it comes to the Cobb salad: a riot of color and instantly recognizable thanks to its various components being plated in tidy rows.

The dish was invented at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, probably in the 1930s, and is named after the owner, Robert Howard Cobb. Stories abound as to who exactly at the restaurant was responsible for the creation: was it Robert Kreis, the executive chef; Paul J. Posti, another chef; or Cobb himself? Remarkable, isn’t it, how many iconic dishes seem to be invented by rich men, with payrolled chefs, motivated only by their appetite and a lean fridge? Their hunger just gets the better of them, necessity becomes the mother of invention, and blammo! An American classic is born. Pity those poor chefs laboring away for years and years who fail to turn out a single memorable dish. I jest: as it happens, Cobb salad does have the flavor of a dish made up from bits and bobs in a fridge forage, and it’s more of an assembly job than high-skill technical cooking.

But although it might look like your run-of-the-mill fridge-forage, chopped salad, an ad-hoc, higgledy-piggledy plate of leftovers, it’s actually a pretty clever combo, hitting all the notes and contrasts that you could want: crunchy and soft, juicy and crumbly, sweet and sour, savory and tangy. It’s casual enough to look like a thrown-together lunch, but sufficiently satisfying to stand as a summer supper.

The rules are loosey-goosey for a salad like this, but there are, I think, some essential constituents: sliced chicken or turkey breast, crisp bacon, broken into shards, jammy boiled eggs, and chopped lettuce for bulk (and the impression of health). I like to add cool slabs of avocado, which is pretty classic, and cherry tomatoes, halved, so that they don’t roll about like marbles; and while blue cheese isn’t always present, I think it brings some needed depth and tang to the proceedings. Others like sliced red onions, or a tumble of sweetcorn, and I’ve seen chunks of orange cheddar replace the blue. Sometimes you’ll see a creamy, buttermilk-style, ranch-y dressing, but for me, those boxes are ticked by the egg, cheese and avocado. For my money, it should all be brought together by a punchy red wine vinaigrette, and sprinkled with a confetti of chopped chives.

It’s probably more chic, more modern, to forgo the kitsch rows and plate this salad more informally, perhaps even toss it together before it reaches the table. But its vibrancy, its fun, is bound up in those silly lines of ingredients. If it’s a plate of contrasts, let’s show that off! I always marvel at quite how bright a Cobb salad is; lining up those reds, golds and greens makes you feel like you’re Dorothy stepping into the glorious Technicolor of Oz.

And anyway, I find it rather meditative assembling a Cobb salad, neatly corralling egg quarters, halved cherry tomatoes and crumbles of blue cheese, lined up like soldiers on a large platter. Of course, as soon as you’ve shown off your edible artwork, the whole thing must be destroyed in the name of lunch, tossed together at the table, to evenly coat everything with the vinaigrette. Although ostensibly a salad, it really is a whole meal — all it needs is some good bread and butter or a bowl of boiled Jersey royals, which, happily, have just come into season.

Serves 4   Takes 15 mins   Cooks 25 mins

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 romaine lettuce  
• 50g blue cheese
• 150g smoked, streaky bacon
• 4 eggs
• 1 avocado
• 200g cherry tomatoes
• Chopped chives, to garnish

For the vinaigrette

• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar
• Salt, to season

1. First, prepare the chicken and the bacon. Preheat the oven to 180°C (356°F) and place the chicken in a small oven-safe dish. Drizzle with a little olive oil, season with salt, and cook for 20-25 minutes until the juices run clear; set to one side to cool.
2. Meanwhile, place the bacon on a small tray, cover with greaseproof paper or tin foil, and lay a tight-fitting tray on top of that. Cook in the oven for around 15 minutes, until the bacon is crisp. Remove the top tray, drain off any liquid that has accumulated, and leave to cool.
3. Bring a pan of water to boil, carefully place the eggs into the hot water, reduce the heat slightly and cook for seven minutes. After the seven minutes are up, immediately place the eggs under cold running water, until they are cold. Peel and set to one side.
4. Peel and stone the avocado, and slice it horizontally to create slim strips. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half, the lettuce into shreds and the eggs into quarters.
5. Take a large platter, and arrange rows of each ingredient: slice the chicken breast horizontally and lay in a neat row on the plate. Arrange the lettuce alongside it, then break the bacon up into shards, and place that next to the lettuce. Follow suit with the quartered eggs, the halved tomatoes and the crumbled blue cheese.
6. Finally, whisk the vinaigrette ingredients, drizzle across the platter and sprinkle with chives. Serve proudly, before tossing the whole thing together.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.