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Cheese Salad
Rub the yolks of 3 hard-boiled eggs until a smooth paste is formed. Add gradually 2 tablespoonfuls of salad-oil, stirring all the while with a fork; then add 1 teaspoonful of mustard, 1/2 saltspoonful of cayenne, and 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, and 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Mix 1 1/2 cupfuls of grated cheese with 1 cupful of chicken meat, diced, with this dressing, and put on to a salad dish. Garnish with the whites of the eggs, cut in circles, and with a few white celery leaves or some sprigs of parsley. Serve with crackers.
A cooked-yolk dressing rather than a mayonnaise: the hard-boiled yolks carry the oil instead of raw yolk, so it will not break, but it also will not emulsify smoothly unless the yolks are worked to a genuine paste first.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so half a saltspoonful of cayenne is about 1/8 teaspoon. That is still assertive with only four tablespoons of dressing behind it; add half and taste.
- MustardA teaspoonful of mustard here most likely means dry mustard powder rather than prepared jarred mustard, though the recipe does not say. Prepared mustard would thin the dressing and bring its own vinegar.
- The hingeSieve or press the yolks rather than merely mashing them, then add the oil a few drops at a time. Yolks that go in lumpy give a grainy dressing that no amount of stirring afterwards will fix.
- CheeseA firm aged Cheddar or a dry "American" cheese is the likeliest intention, though the recipe does not specify; 1 1/2 cups grated is roughly 5 oz. Grate it coarsely, as finely grated cheese packs into a paste once dressed.
- Salad-oilIn American usage of this period salad oil usually meant olive oil, sometimes cottonseed. Either a mild olive oil or a neutral oil works; a strongly peppery oil will fight the cayenne and mustard.
- ChickenDiced meat from a poached or roast bird, white and dark mixed. One cup diced is about 5 oz, close to one large breast half.
- Yield and servingEnough for four as a first course or light lunch. Dress it shortly before serving, as the cheese stiffens and the vinegar dulls the parsley if it stands.
Cheese salads belong to a wave of late nineteenth-century American "made" salads in which the greens were incidental and the bowl was mainly a way to serve up cold cooked meat, cheese or fish under a sharp dressing. Cooked-yolk dressings were used in English and American cookery alongside mayonnaise, and are forgiving in a way mayonnaise is not: cooked yolks will absorb oil without curdling. Serving the whole thing with crackers rather than bread suggests the luncheon and supper table of the period, where a salad of this kind could stand in for a hot dish.