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Raspberry Cream Salad
Mash to a cream 1/2 Neufchatel cheese, add 1/4 of a saltspoonful of mustard and pepper, 1/2 saltspoonful of salt, and 1/2 teaspoonful of lemon juice; mix well and add 1/2 cupful of rich cream. Stir until smooth and add 1/2 cupful of pure raspberry juice. Make nests of white, crisp lettuce, put 1 spoonful of raspberries in each, and pour around them the cream dressing. Serve very cold.
A soft-cheese dressing thinned with cream and fruit juice, closer to a sweet-tart sauce than a vinaigrette. Everything depends on serving it cold and dressing the lettuce at the last moment.
- The quantity of cheeseNeufchatel of this period was sold in small cakes rather than by weight, so "1/2" means only an ounce or two. Modern Neufchatel comes in 8-ounce bricks; use about 1 1/2 to 2 ounces, or the dressing will be too stiff to pour.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. A quarter of one is therefore a scant 1/16 teaspoon each of mustard and pepper: a pinch, no more. The half saltspoonful of salt is 1/8 teaspoon.
- Rich creamHeavy or whipping cream, unwhipped. Half-and-half will leave the dressing watery once the raspberry juice goes in.
- Pure raspberry juiceCrush ripe raspberries and press them through a fine sieve or jelly bag; about 1 1/2 cups of berries gives 1/2 cupful of juice. Bottled raspberry drink or syrup is sweetened and will overwhelm the cheese.
- Order of mixingBeat the cheese smooth with the seasonings and lemon juice before any liquid goes in. Cream added to lumpy cheese will never come together, and the acid in the juice tightens it further.
- TemperatureChill the finished dressing at least an hour. It thickens slightly as it cools and separates if it stands warm.
- AssemblyPour the dressing around the lettuce cups rather than over them, as written; the leaves wilt on contact and the point of the dish is the contrast of crisp lettuce against cold cream.
- YieldEnough for four small salads. Iceberg or the firm hearts of romaine hold a nest shape; butter lettuce is too soft.
Fruit-and-cream-cheese salads were a fixture of American entertaining from the 1890s through the 1920s, when the salad course was newly fashionable and cooks treated it as a place for delicacy rather than substance. Neufchatel, named for the town of Neufchâtel-en-Bray in Normandy, was made in New York State from the 1870s onward and became the cheap, mild soft cheese of the American grocer; the cream cheese sold today grew from the same trade. A dressing built on soft cheese, cream and fruit juice rather than oil and vinegar reflects a period taste, often traced to the influence of hotel and ladies'-luncheon cookery, for salads that were sweet, pale and served very cold.