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Asparagus-and-Cucumber Salad
Take the tips of cold cooked asparagus. Cut into thin slices 1 cucumber and let it stand in very cold water for an hour. Drain, and dry on a towel, sprinkle lightly with salt, and mix in lightly the asparagus tips. Arrange nests of crisp lettuce leaves on a platter or shallow salad bowl, put 1 spoonful of the cucumber and asparagus in each, and pour over a mayonnaise dressing. Or mix the salad dressing lightly with the cucumber and asparagus before filling the nests.
A cold composed salad that depends entirely on the vegetables being properly drained and properly chilled. Nothing here needs updating except the handling.
- Dry the cucumberThe hour in ice water crisps the slices, but any water left clinging will thin the mayonnaise into a puddle. Pat firmly between towels, and salt only just before assembling so the slices do not begin weeping again.
- Cooking the asparagusThe recipe assumes leftover cooked tips. Starting fresh, boil or steam trimmed spears a few minutes, depending on thickness, then plunge into ice water and drain — cookbooks of this period commonly called for boiling asparagus twenty minutes or more, which produces something limp and grey.
- Tips onlyUse the top two to three inches. The lower stalk is fibrous when cold and will drag on the fork; save it for soup.
- MayonnaiseA period mayonnaise dressing here means a thick emulsified oil-and-egg sauce, not a boiled or cooked dressing. Commercial mayonnaise thinned with a spoonful of lemon juice behaves much the same on cold vegetables.
- Lettuce nestsCup-shaped leaves from the heart of a butter or iceberg lettuce hold the filling; loose-leaf types collapse. Chill the leaves and the platter, and assemble no more than a few minutes before serving.
- Dress inside or outThe two options are not equivalent. Sauce poured over keeps the vegetables distinct and looks better; tossed through, the salad tastes more of dressing but softens within minutes.
- YieldOne cucumber and the tips of a bundle of asparagus will fill roughly four to six nests as a first course or luncheon salad, depending on how generous the spoonful is.