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Tomato Canapé
Cut bread a quarter inch thick and make rounds, with a cooky-cutter. Spread with butter and then with mayonnaise, on this put a slice of peeled tomato the exact size of the bread, spread this with mayonnaise, edge the tomato with a ring of chopped parsley, then inside of the parsley a ring of the chopped white of a hard boiled egg, then the powdered yolk in the middle, on the center of this a stuffed olive with a tiny sprig of parsley stuck in the top.
An assembly job rather than a cooking one, but the tolerances are tight: everything depends on the tomato slice matching the bread round exactly.
- Cut the tomato firstSlice the peeled tomato about a quarter inch thick, then choose a cutter that matches the slices you get rather than the other way round. A 1 1/2 to 2 inch round is the usual size for a canapé eaten in one or two bites.
- Peeling the tomatoScore the skin, dip in boiling water for 10 to 15 seconds, then into ice water and the skin slips off. Firm, slightly underripe fruit holds its shape on the bread far better than a dead-ripe one.
- Drain, or it will be soggyLay the tomato slices on paper towel or a rack for 10 minutes and blot the cut faces. Untreated slices weep straight through the mayonnaise and the bread collapses within the hour.
- The butter is structuralThe layer of butter under the mayonnaise helps keep moisture out of the bread. Spread it right to the edge of the round.
- MayonnaiseA recipe of this period would most likely have used a thick homemade mayonnaise made with raw yolk. Commercial jarred mayonnaise, made with pasteurised egg, behaves much the same and is the sensible choice for food standing at room temperature on a buffet.
- Powdered yolkSimply the cooked yolk of a hard-boiled egg pushed through a fine sieve, which gives the fine dry crumb the pattern needs. Chopping it with a knife produces lumps that will not sit in a neat circle.
- Stuffed oliveA pimiento-stuffed green olive, drained and blotted. Slicing a thin sliver off the base stops it rolling off the yolk.
- Timing and yieldAssemble no more than 30 to 45 minutes before serving and keep covered and cool. Yield depends on the size of the cutter and the loaf.
The canapé -- the French word for a sofa or couch, the culinary sense traditionally explained as the bread being the seat on which the garnish sits -- became a fixture of American entertaining in the early twentieth century, as the formal dinner gave way to lighter luncheons, bridge parties and the cocktail hour. The concentric rings of parsley, egg white and sieved yolk are pure period style: the ornamental garnishing taught in the cooking schools of the era.