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Surprise Salad
Carefully cut a slice from the top of a well-ripened tomato, remove the seeds and part of the inner portion, and fill with any salad; replace the slice of tomato, and serve with a garnish of cut lemon.
A stuffed raw tomato with the filling hidden under its own lid — the "surprise" is whatever salad you put inside. The recipe assumes you already have a made salad on hand, so treat it as an assembly method rather than a dish in itself.
- Choose the tomato firstA firm, ripe tomato of roughly 6-8 oz holds its shape when hollowed; overripe fruit collapses under the lid. Beefsteak types are easiest to cut cleanly, and a flat-bottomed one will stand without a slice taken off the base.
- Salt and drainAfter hollowing, sprinkle the inside lightly with salt and invert the shells on a rack for 15-20 minutes. Tomatoes shed a good deal of liquid, and skipping this step turns any dressed filling watery within minutes.
- Fillings that suit itThe recipe says only 'any salad', but a bound salad works best under a lid — chicken, crab, lobster, egg, or a chopped celery-and-nut mixture in mayonnaise. Loose leaf salads will not stay put under the replaced lid.
- Assemble lateFill no more than an hour before serving and keep refrigerated. If the filling contains cooked poultry or shellfish in mayonnaise, hold it cold throughout; the original gives no guidance on this.
- The lemon garnishThe original calls for a garnish of cut lemon; a squeeze also cuts the richness of a mayonnaise-bound filling.
- YieldOne tomato per person as a first course or luncheon salad; count about 1/3 cup of filling for each. Serve on a lettuce leaf if you want the plate to look less bare.