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Jerusalem Artichoke Salad
To a cup of cooked artichokes diced, add a cup of diced celery, mix with mayonnaise and arrange on lettuce hearts, or slices of peeled tomatoes.
Garnish with mayonnaise put through a pastry tube, and strips of pimento.
A short composed salad of the kind that assumes you already have cooked vegetables and a jar of mayonnaise on hand. The main work is in the artichokes themselves, which the recipe leaves entirely to you.
- What the vegetable isJerusalem artichokes are sunchokes, the knobbly tubers of Helianthus tuberosus, unrelated to globe artichokes. Look for them under either name, and buy somewhat more than a cup's worth raw to allow for peeling loss.
- Cooking themSimmer peeled tubers in salted water 10-15 minutes, until a knife goes in with slight resistance. Cooked to full softness they collapse into mush when diced, and their appeal here is the crisp, water-chestnut texture set against the celery.
- Keep them paleCut surfaces brown quickly. Drop the peeled tubers into water with a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar as you work, and cook them in the same acidulated water.
- Cool completelyThe original does not say so, but the diced artichokes and celery must be cold and well drained before the mayonnaise goes in, or the dressing thins and slides off the lettuce.
- MayonnaiseThe piped garnish implies a mayonnaise stiff enough to hold its shape, which a homemade one would be. Some jarred mayonnaises are too slack to pipe; if yours is, use a firmer brand or stiffen it with a little more oil-and-yolk emulsion.
- PimentoCanned pimentos are mild red peppers, roasted and skinned, sold in jars in most supermarkets. Drain and blot them dry before cutting into strips, or the juice will streak the mayonnaise pink.
- Lettuce heartsThe recipe does not specify a variety. 'Lettuce hearts' would be the tight pale centre of a crisphead, quartered or cupped; Little Gem or the heart of a romaine also works and holds its shape under dressing.
- YieldTwo cups of dressed salad serves four as a first course or side, two as a lunch plate.
- One caveatSunchokes store their carbohydrate as inulin, which many people do not digest comfortably in quantity. A cup split among four is a sensible amount for a first outing.
Jerusalem artichokes are native to eastern North America, were grown by Indigenous peoples before European contact, and were carried back to Europe early in the seventeenth century, where they were eaten widely before the potato displaced them. The name has nothing to do with Jerusalem; it is generally traced to a corruption of the Italian girasole, sunflower, though that explanation is traditional rather than firmly documented. By the time of small American books like this one, the tuber had become a curiosity vegetable rather than a staple, and it turns up mostly in salads, where its crispness could stand in for celery root or water chestnut. The presentation here, with mayonnaise piped through a pastry tube and pimento strips laid on top, is pure period style: a plain vegetable dressed up with garnish work borrowed from the pastry kitchen.