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Tomato Salad
Take some ripe red English tomatoes; slice or quarter them; sprinkle a little Lucca oil over them, and about a third as much vinegar; a few drops of onion or tarragon vinegar may be added; finish off with salt and pepper--mignonette pepper for preference. A pinch of white sugar is an improvement. Chopped spring onions may be used if there is no onion vinegar at hand. Probable cost of tomatoes, 4d. to 8d. per pound.
TOMATO SAUCE FOR PRESENT USE (to serve with Cutlets, Roast Meats, etc). Take a dozen ripe tomatoes, cut them in halves, and press the seeds and the watery part from them. Put them in a stewpan with a quarter of a pint of gravy or strong broth and a quarter of a salt-spoonful of cayenne. Let them stew softly until they are tender. Press them through a fine sieve, and put the pulp back into the stewpan with half a tea-spoonful of salt. Let it simmer gently for a few minutes, and serve very hot. If liked, a blade of mace, two or three shallots, and two cloves may be stewed with the tomatoes, but most lovers of tomatoes prefer that they should retain their distinctive character, and consider that tomato sauce is spoilt if it is flavoured with other ingredients. Tomatoes very so much in size and juiciness that it is difficult to give the exact quantity of liquor required for them. It should be remembered, however, that the sauce should be of the consistency of thick cream, and that if it is too thick a little more gravy should be added: if too thin, it should be boiled down very quickly for a short time. Time to simmer the tomatoes, about an hour. Probable cost, 2d. to 4d. per pound. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
Two related preparations run together on one page: a dressed raw tomato salad and a plain tomato sauce. Both hinge on the same thing -- the flavour of the tomatoes themselves, with almost nothing added.
- Lucca oilLucca, in Tuscany, was the standard source of fine table olive oil in British shops of the period. Any good extra-virgin olive oil does the job; the ratio given is three parts oil to one part vinegar.
- Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked pepper, usually a mix of white and black, rather than fine-ground. Crush peppercorns under a pan base or use the coarsest mill setting.
- Onion and tarragon vinegarFlavoured vinegars made by steeping onion or tarragon in wine vinegar for a week or two. Tarragon vinegar is still sold; for onion vinegar the recipe's own fallback of chopped spring onion is fine.
- "English tomatoes"Meaning home-grown produce, largely raised under glass, rather than imported fruit. Read it as an instruction to use the ripest tomatoes available, and salt them a few minutes before dressing.
- Salt-spoon and quarter-pintA salt-spoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so a quarter of one is a scant pinch of cayenne. A quarter-pint in an imperial measure is 5 fl oz, a little over half a US cup.
- The hour of simmeringAn hour is not a mistake here -- the sauce is meant to reduce and concentrate, and the seeds and watery part have already been pressed out. Watch it toward the end and add gravy if it tightens past thick cream.
- Gravy or strong brothHousehold "gravy" in Victorian usage means meat stock, not thickened pan sauce. Use a well-reduced beef or veal stock; a vegetable stock changes the character but works.
- SievingPressing through a fine sieve removes skin and any remaining seed. A food mill does it faster; a blender does not, since it purees the skins in rather than removing them.
- YieldThe sauce is stated as enough for six to eight. The salad gives no yield -- allow one large tomato per person as a side.
Grown in England mainly under glass, tomatoes were priced here at 2d. to 8d. a pound, dear enough to be a treat but no longer a curiosity, and the book's insistence that "most lovers of tomatoes" think mace, shallot and clove spoil the sauce sits against the earlier English tomato sauces, which were heavily spiced in the manner of a ketchup or a store sauce. Lucca oil was a byword for quality in British grocers, and its appearance in a recipe was shorthand for "use the good stuff."