North America · Volume 37, The Market, the Truck and the Tide
Cobb salad
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Not statedNo source states a time and the atlas has too few comparable dishes to estimate one.
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Cobb salad
Hollywood Brown Derby version, republished by PBS SoCal
Ingredients
For the salad
- 1/2 head salad green of choice
- 1/2 bunch watercress
- 1 small bunch chicory
- 1/2 head romaine
- 2 medium tomatoes, peeled
- 2 chicken breasts, poached
- 6 strips bacon, very crispy
- 1 avocado
- 3 eggs, hard-boiled
- 2 cups chives, chopped
- 1/2 cup Roquefort, grated or crumbled
For the French dressing
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 juice of half a lemon
- 2 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- 2 cups salad oil
Method
- Finely chop the greens, tomatoes, chicken, bacon, avocado, eggs, chives and Roquefort.
- Make the French dressing: combine the water, red wine vinegar, sugar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic, olive oil and salad oil.
- Toss the salad with about a cup of the dressing.
Notes
The standard story credits Robert Howard Cobb, owner of the Brown Derby, with assembling the salad from refrigerator leftovers for his friend Sid Grauman in 1937; a rival, less-repeated account credits the restaurant's executive chef, Robert Kreis, with creating it in 1929 and naming it after Cobb as a tribute.
The Brown Derby closed in 1985 and several circulating versions descend from a later commemorative recreation, so this is treated as the best-documented version available rather than an unbroken 1937 original.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide chicken, smoked bacon
Ingredients
- chives, for dehydrating and grinding
Method
- Poach the chicken breast sous vide at a precise, held temperature rather than in simmering water.
- Cook the bacon on a Big Green Egg over indirect heat with a light fruitwood smoke, a genuine departure from a pan that adds real depth to a component the original recipe treats as a simple crisp garnish.
- Dehydrate a portion of the chives and grind them into a fine green seasoning powder, dusted over the finished, chopped salad alongside the fresh remainder.