Food: Crunch time

This is my take on Caesar Salad. One of the secrets of its success is using slow-cooked chicken thighs with the skin on. The skin becomes golden and crisp and full of garlic and thyme flavours and the meat retains all its succulence, giving a meaty depth to the salad. After eating this, you won't want to go near a dried-out skinless chicken breast again.

This is a brilliant light meal in its own right. It is, as its name suggests, a king of salads, crammed with punchy flavours and contrasting textures. You've got four kinds of crunchiness for starters, from the crispy chicken skin to the super-crunchy dry-cured pancetta, with herby croutons and summery crisp lettuce in between. All this texture is smoothed over with the fab creamy dressing, itself a medley of strong flavours such as anchovy, spring onions, Parmesan, capers, lemon juice and garlic. Together, with the oil and vinegar, they create almost a mayonnaise in texture, but minus any raw egg. I've actually gone for a lovely yielding poached egg to top off the whole salad. Instructions on how to make the perfect poached egg, for those that need them, can be found below in the Critical Points.

Warm Caesar salad

Serves two

4 boned chicken thighs, about 100g each
2 sprigs thyme
1 clove garlic
2 poached eggs (see Critical Points)
2 little gem lettuce
6 rashers pancetta, thinly sliced
8 thin slices French bread (baguette or ficelle)
olive oil
Parmesan shavings

For the dressing

2 spring onions, white part only, chopped
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp water
9 tbsp sunflower oil
4 tinned anchovies
½ tsp Dijon mustard
1-2 cloves garlic
Maldon salt
freshly milled pepper

For the French bread "croutons", heat the oven to 160°C/gas 3. Drizzle the eight slices of bread with olive oil and pop into the oven for eight minutes. Turn over and sprinkle thyme leaves on both sides. Return to the oven until golden and crisp. Remove and keep aside until needed. You could also do this on the hob in a pan with a little oil, on a low heat.

For the chicken, buy boned thighs with the skin. If they're not available, you can bone them yourself. To do this, run a sharp knife down the thigh bone, cutting the meat to allow it to come away. Do this several times on each side until the bone comes free.

Heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Season the boned thighs well, add olive oil to the pan, then place the thighs in it skin-side down. Toss in the garlic clove and remaining thyme to flavour the oil. Cook the chicken skin-side down until it is nice and crispy. This will take 20-30 minutes. Leave the thighs while cooking; don't be tempted to push them around the pan. When cooked, turn them over and discard the garlic, which will be well browned by now. Continue to cook the chicken for another two to three minutes. Remove to a warm place to rest for five minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, poach your eggs (see Critical Points) and bake the pancetta in a 180°C/gas 4 oven for about five minutes or until golden and crispy. Lift the cooked pancetta on to kitchen paper to drain off excess fat. Place all the ingredients for the dressing into a one-litre jug, preferably tall rather than wide, and with a hand blender puree down to a smooth sauce.

To serve, peel off the outer leaves of each lettuce and lay them around the base of each plate in a fan-like pattern. Slice each lettuce core into quarters and arrange in the centre of the plate. Put the poached egg back on to finish cooking. Drizzle the lettuce with some of the dressing. Take the thighs and cut each one into three sections. Arrange the chicken on the lettuce around the edges of the plate. Set a poached egg on each central lettuce core and split open. Lay a rasher of bacon on the eggs and break up the remaining rashers over the chicken. Finally, arrange the crispy French bread croutons on the salad and finish with a few shavings of fresh Parmesan cheese and a little more dressing.


Critical points

For the chicken, boned thighs will cook quicker, are less fiddly and are easier to slice once cooked. It's slow, patient cooking that really enhances the flavour of the meat. On a low to medium heat, with the skin on, the meat will remain really succulent, cooking slowly from the bottom upwards. All you need to do is keep an eye on it. Don't prod, poke or jiggle it while it's cooking.

We poach our eggs the traditional way. First pick a very fresh egg and crack it into an espresso cup; second, add a splash of clear vinegar to a small pan of water and bring it to a simmer; third, stir a spoon around the edge of the bubbling water to create a whirlpool; finally, lower the base of the cup into the water (holding it by the handle prevents you from burning your hand), hold it there for 20 seconds, then gently slide the egg into the central vortex. Cook on a low heat for five to six minutes for a runny yolk and set white. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain on kitchen paper and serve. If you're cooking the eggs in advance, cook for three minutes and remove into a bowl of cold water until needed, then simply pop the eggs back into simmering water for two to three minutes to finish cooking and heat through.

For the dressing, taste it to check the balance. Add more lemon juice if it's not acidic enough. We use sunflower oil rather than olive, for a lighter base, otherwise there will be too many heavy ingredients. Use only the whites of the onions or the colour will become a murky khaki. The spring onions, anchovies, Parmesan and capers provide body to the dressing, which has a quality similar to mayonnaise, despite containing no eggs.