Cobb Salad

Cobb salad...mmmm, don't you love it! I do! It's way better than just a plain old tossed salad..it has crisp bacon, creamy avocado, delicious chopped chicken breast and hard boiled egg!

So...Cobb salad...why is it called Cobb salad?

I'll tell you why.

Cobb salad was created by Bob Cobb....the owner of the famous Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood.



As the story goes...the year is 1937...around midnight Bob Cobb was hungry. Pacing his kitchen he opened the refrigerator and started pulling out this and that...an avocado, lettuce, a hard boiled egg, a cooked chicken breast, cheese, tomato...he began chopping..then swiped some crisp cooked bacon from his chef. He put it all together and topped it with some old fashioned French dressing.

Sid Grauman from the famous Chinese Grauman Theatre was there with Bob Cobb that night when he created this delicious salad. The next day, Sid came back and asked for a "Cobb" salad. And so....the Cobb salad was born! His invention became an overnight success with customers.



This is my version of the Cobb salad. On a beautiful platter filled with washed, chopped iceberg lettuce, I top my salad (from left to right) with rows of bacon, cucumber, kalamata olives, cubed cheese, tomato, chicken, and avocado. I have to tell you, though, I completely forgot to hard boil and egg for my salad. I love chopped hard boiled egg on Cobb salad. I remembered it once I had everything put together and was about to present this beautiful salad to my family! Darn! Oh well, next time. I added a couple of things that aren't on the original salad and you can do that as well. There's no hard fast rules when it comes to creating your own Cobb salad.

For curiosity sake, here's the ingredients in the original Cobb salad: head lettuce, avocado, romaine, watercress, chicory, tomatoes, cold chicken breast, hard boiled egg, chives, bacon and Roquefort cheese. The recipe for the French dressing from The Brown Derby is as follows: 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1/4 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice, 2 tsp. salt, 3/4 tsp. black pepper, 3/4 tsp. Worcestershire, 1/4 tsp. dry English mustard, 1 small clove minced garlic, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 3/4 cup salad oil. First, blend all ingredients together except the oils. Next add oils and mix well.

Make a Cobb salad for your family for lunch or dinner! Everyone will love it!!