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Tomatoes with Whipped Cream
Peel and halve firm ripe tomatoes, then set on ice for an hour or so. Place them on a bed of lettuce leaves, sprinkle with salt, and put a heaping spoonful of whipped cream on each half.
A very simple salad from the era when whipped cream stood in for mayonnaise on cold vegetables. Everything depends on the tomatoes and on the cream being unsweetened.
- Unsweetened creamWhip heavy cream to soft peaks with nothing but a pinch of salt. Modern readers reach for sugar and vanilla by reflex; either one ruins the dish.
- "Set on ice"This means chilling, not freezing. An hour in the refrigerator does the same job; the point is that the tomato halves are thoroughly cold when the cream goes on.
- PeelingDrop the tomatoes in boiling water for 15 to 30 seconds, then into cold water, and the skins slip off. Chill them well afterward, since the blanching warms the flesh.
- Season at the last momentSalt draws water out of cut tomato within minutes. Sprinkle just before the cream goes on, or the plate floods.
- Assemble to orderWhipped cream on a wet, salted tomato loosens quickly. Whip the cream ahead, keep it cold, and spoon it out as the plates go to the table.
- YieldReckon one whole tomato, or two halves, per person, and about 1/2 cup of cream before whipping for four servings.
- A useful additionA few drops of lemon juice or a spoonful of sharp vinegar folded into the cream gives the dish the acidity a mayonnaise dressing would have supplied, and keeps it from tasting merely rich.
Cream dressings for salad were common in American cookery before bottled mayonnaise became a pantry staple: whipped cream, sometimes soured or sharpened with lemon, turns up in salad chapters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries alongside boiled and French dressings. Books of this period often treat raw tomatoes gingerly, peeled, iced, and set on lettuce as much for looks as for flavor. The arrangement suits the fashion for cold, composed luncheon salads, in which presentation on a leaf mattered a good deal and a spoonful of whipped cream made a light dressing.