Cobb Salad

This is a guaranteed crowd pleaser!

I am going to share with you how to make the perfectly cooked, juicy chicken breast. Now don't think you can only use this part of the recipe for this salad - I use this cooking method for any chicken breast I'm cooking in the oven (remember, I use a Sous Vide to cook a lot of meat too).

Pre-heat your oven to 375F.

Get a small baking dish out, spray with the non-stick cooking spray. Take a look at your raw chicken breasts. If at the thickest point it's about 1 1/2 inches thick you're going to cake it for 25 minutes. If it's thicker than 1 1/2 inches you're going to bake it for 35 minutes - not a minute longer

Place the raw chicken in the baking dish, season with salt & pepper or whatever type of seasoning you prefer. On this batch of chicken I used Tony's Chacheres Cajun seasoning. Now place the chicken breasts in the oven and cook for the appropriate time.

When the chicken is done take it out of the oven to cool down.

If you're going to make bacon to add to the salad, which by the way I highly recommend, use your kitchen scissors to cut the bacon up before you cook it. Place it all in a non-stick skillet and cook it low and slow. On my stove I cook bacon this way on a setting of 3.5. By doing it this way you will avoid most bacon spatter, you cook more bacon at once, you won't have to break the bacon up into pieces when its' done and best of all, you can sneak one of two of those little pieces and no one will be the wiser.

Add water and eggs to a small saucepan. Place it on the stove and turn the heat to high. As soon as they start to boil turn the heat to medium high and set the timer for 9 minutes.

When the timer goes off take the pan off the heat and set off to the side for a few minutes, then run cold water over the eggs and shell them.

Use a knife cutting the core out of the lettuce. You can do this by placing the lettuce on the cutting board and then slice at an angle over the core, then repeat from the other side. When complete you will be missing a triangle from the bottom of the lettuce. Make sure the core is completely out by looking for the solid light green center. If it's still there surrounded by lettuce, cut it out.

Chop the remaining lettuce into bite size pieces then clean it and set aside to dry.

Now that all the meat is cooled down cut everything into bite size pieces. Be careful to keep all the meat separated so that the presentation is clean.

Diced all the veggies but again, be sure to NOT mix them up. For presentations sake we want to make sure that all the items in this salad are independent of the over.

Place all the lettuce into the serving bowl or pan that you're using. The lettuce should be 2/3's up the side of the pan. We need to leave space to get everything else in without making a mess.

Take a handful of one of the meats then puts your hands together as though you're praying. Now go down one of sides of the lettuce (outside edge first) dropping meat as you go. This will make a very clean line. Take the second meat and repeat the process on opposite side of the pan. After you get all the meat added (with a ton of lettuce in the middle) repeat the process again with the veggies. Be aware of colors. You wouldn't want to put feta cheese next to the chicken because it will just blend in. When you're finished you should have a beautiful, tasty, filling salad that will be a feast for the stomach, but also for the eyes.