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Pimola-and-Cheese Salad
Break up 2 square cream cheeses and mix with 2 dozen olives and 6 pimentos, both chopped rather fine, or, use with 2 dozen pimolas, which are olives stuffed with pimentos; pack closely into a pan and put on ice, and when it is to be used cut in strips and served on lettuce with French dressing. The contrasting colors of the green olives, the scarlet pimentos, and the white cheese make the effect most attractive.
A chilled cheese-and-olive loaf, sliced and dressed, from the era when a salad was often something moulded rather than tossed. Nothing here is difficult; the only real variables are the size of the cheese and how firmly you pack it.
- A "square cream cheese"The small block sold by the piece in this period, probably nearer 3 ounces than today's 8-ounce brick. Two of them would be a modest quantity against two dozen olives; two full modern bricks will bury them.
- PimolasA trade name for pimiento-stuffed green olives, glossed here because readers might not know the word. Any jar of stuffed Manzanillas does the job, and the recipe's first version — plain olives plus separately chopped pimientos — gives a better-looking marbled cut.
- Work the cheese soft first"Break up" at least means reducing the cheese so it will mix evenly, and working it soft first helps: cold cheese folded around chopped olives tends to crumble when sliced rather than hold a clean edge.
- Pack and chill properlyLine a small loaf pan or terrine with plastic wrap, press the mixture in hard to drive out air pockets, and refrigerate at least four hours or overnight. Under-packed cheese falls apart at the knife.
- Drain the olivesChopped olives carry a surprising amount of brine, which will keep the loaf slack and weep onto the lettuce. Blot them dry on a towel; jarred pimientos too.
- SeasoningNo salt is called for and none is needed — the olives supply plenty. A few grinds of pepper and a little lemon zest in the cheese are in keeping.
- French dressingIn this book that means a simple vinaigrette of oil and vinegar, roughly three to one, with salt and pepper — not the sweet orange bottled dressing of later decades.
- YieldA small loaf of this size will give a handful of slices, enough for perhaps four to six small salad portions depending on the pan. Cut with a thin knife wiped clean between slices.