(No. 2) (Use the white hearts)

An assembly salad rather than a cooked one, so it stands or falls on the condition of the vegetables and the timing of the dressing.

• Lettuce hearts"White hearts" means the pale, tightly furled centre of a head of iceberg or butterhead, the part that cups naturally; save the outer green leaves for another use. The recipe gives no quantities, so the number of heads depends on how many well-shaped cupping leaves each one yields.
• Scalding tomatoesCut a shallow cross in the base, drop into boiling water for 15 to 30 seconds, then straight into ice water. The skin slips off in quarters. Any longer and the flesh under the skin turns soft and the tomato slumps in the nest.
• Choose small tomatoesThe recipe wants one tomato per serving, sitting whole. Cocktail or small vine tomatoes of about two inches work; large modern beefsteaks are too heavy for a lettuce cup and should be halved or the dish rescaled.
• Radish rosesCutting the peel into points and turning it back is the standard radish rose. It only opens if the cut radishes sit in ice water for 30 minutes to an hour, which the original assumes rather than states.
• French dressing of the periodIn American books of this era French dressing means oil, vinegar, salt and pepper whisked together, commonly somewhere between two and three parts oil to one of vinegar, with no ketchup or sugar. The bottled orange product sold under that name today is a different thing entirely.
• Dress at the tablePour the dressing on immediately before serving. Oil and vinegar collapse crisp lettuce hearts within a few minutes, and the nests lose their shape.
• Everything coldChill the peeled tomatoes, the radishes and the lettuce separately, and chill the platter as well. The whole effect of the dish is coldness and contrast.
• YieldThe recipe states no yield or quantities; as written it implies one nest and one small tomato per person, scaled to the number of diners.