Celery Slaw
Cut fine two bunches celery, chop one-half head cabbage, make a dressing of three hard boiled eggs, one teaspoon made mustard, one teaspoon sugar, two tablespoons melted butter, salt, pepper and vinegar.
A cooked-egg dressing rather than a mayonnaise, of the sort common before bottled salad dressing. The original assumes you know how to assemble it, so the method needs filling in.
- Two bunches celeryA "bunch" here is what a supermarket sells as a head or stalk of celery, roughly 1 to 1.5 lb. Two heads plus half a cabbage gives a slaw that is more celery than cabbage, which is the point of the dish; use the inner ribs and leaves and save the coarse outer stalks for stock.
- Made mustard"Made" mustard means mustard already mixed to a paste with liquid, not dry mustard powder. Any plain prepared mustard works; a teaspoon of dry powder in its place would be far sharper.
- Building the dressingSeparate the hard-boiled yolks from the whites. Mash the yolks smooth with the mustard, sugar, salt and pepper, work in the melted butter to a paste, then thin with vinegar a little at a time. Chop the whites and stir them through at the end so they stay visible.
- The vinegar is unmeasuredThe original gives no quantity at all, so it has to be added by taste until the dressing pours. Start with about two tablespoons of cider vinegar for three yolks and go from there. Too much at once and the butter will separate out into flecks.
- Warm butter, warm bowlMelted butter seizes into grains the moment it meets cold vinegar or cold egg. Have the yolks at room temperature and add the vinegar slowly; if it does break, a teaspoon of hot water beaten in will usually bring it back.
- Dress lateSalted dressing draws water out of cabbage and celery quite quickly and the slaw goes slack. Toss just before it goes to the table, or hold the vegetables cold and dress them at the last minute.
- YieldEnough for six to eight as a side dish, possibly more. It will keep a day in the refrigerator but loses its crispness.
Celery was a comparative luxury in nineteenth-century American kitchens, grown in trenches and blanched, sold in the tall footed "celery glasses" that appear in period china catalogues, and often served plain as a relish. By the closing decades of the century Michigan and New York market gardening had brought the price down enough for it to be chopped into everyday dishes like this one, where it stretches half a head of cabbage into something that reads as more genteel than plain slaw. The boiled-egg dressing is the older American style, predating the general adoption of mayonnaise in home cookery.