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Dressed Endive
Marinate the bleached leaves of crisp endive with French Dressing, adding one and one-half tablespoons finely chopped chives and one-half tablespoon Nasturtium seed cells finely chopped, to the dressing just before pouring over Endive.
A one-line salad that depends entirely on the quality of the leaves and the balance of the dressing. Two of the three components need translation for a modern shopper.
- What "endive" means here"Endive" in American cookbooks of this period may mean either the blanched chicory head sold today as Belgian endive or witloof, or curly endive (frisée), which gardeners also blanched by tying up or covering the heads; "bleached leaves" is consistent with either. Witloof is the safer reading for a salad of whole crisp leaves; frisée will work but is more bitter and wants a sharper dressing.
- Nasturtium seed cellsThe green seed pods of Tropaeolum majus, picked while soft, often pickled in vinegar and used as a caper substitute. If you have no nasturtiums, salt-packed or brined capers, rinsed and chopped, give the same peppery bite.
- French Dressing of 1900Recipes under this name in the period are generally oil and vinegar in the region of three to one with salt and pepper, shaken or whisked to a temporary emulsion, though some versions add mustard or paprika. Follow the book's own formula if it gives one; a plain dressing suits this salad, since the chives and seeds are meant to carry it.
- Marinate, brieflyMarinate -- Dressed leaves soften as they stand in acid, so if you want them crisp, dress shortly before serving and toss lightly. The recipe's own word is "marinate," which in this period usually did mean letting the leaves stand in the dressing.
- Add the aromatics lastThe recipe has the chives and seed pods stirred into the dressing just before it is poured, rather than steeped in it beforehand.
- Quantities and yieldThe dressing volume and the amount of endive are both unstated. The chive and seed quantities are small enough to suit a modest quantity of dressing for a side salad; scale by taste.
Nasturtium pods were a standard kitchen-garden thrift in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pickled in autumn and kept through winter as a home-grown stand-in for imported capers; recipes for them appear in English household books well before they turn up in American ones. Autumn is when the pods are still soft enough to chop, so the timing is seasonal logic rather than novelty. Blanched endive was grown under cover or buried in sand to keep the leaves pale and mild.