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Tuna Fish Salad
To one cupful of diced celery, one shredded green pepper and one hard-boiled egg chopped, add two cupfuls of canned tuna fish, mix with half a cupful of French dressing and marinate in the ice box for two hours. Serve on lettuce leaves in a mound, spread with mayonnaise and garnish with stuffed olives sliced.
A cold composed salad that depends almost entirely on the dressing and the chilling time. Two straightforward substitutions bring it in line with what is on the shelf now.
- Canned tuna quantityTwo cupfuls of tuna is roughly 10-12 oz, so two or three standard 5 oz cans. Oil-packed tuna was the usual product of the period; water-packed will taste noticeably leaner here.
- What French dressing meantIn a book of this era it is a simple shaken vinaigrette, about three parts oil to one part vinegar with salt, pepper and perhaps a little paprika or mustard. It is not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under that name today, which would make the salad cloying.
- Drain the tuna wellThe hinge of the dish. Two hours of marinating in half a cup of dressing will turn watery tuna into a puddle, and the mound will not hold its shape on the lettuce.
- Shredded green pepperMeans cut into thin strips rather than grated. One small pepper, or half a large one, is enough for this quantity.
- Marinating timeTwo hours in the refrigerator is right for flavour, but add the chopped egg toward the end if you want it distinct rather than broken up into the dressing.
- Stuffed olivesPimiento-stuffed green olives, sliced crosswise into rounds. They are the salt and colour of the plate, so keep the dressing lightly salted.
- YieldServes four as a lunch course, or six as one dish among several on a summer buffet.
Canned tuna was still a relatively young American staple when books like this were written: the California packing industry grew up in the first decades of the twentieth century, and albacore and yellowfin in tins moved quickly from novelty to pantry standby because they needed no refrigeration and no cooking. That last quality is much of the recipe's appeal — a substantial protein dish assembled without lighting the stove, apart from one boiled egg. The construction is pure period salad service: a mound on lettuce leaves, masked with mayonnaise and finished with sliced stuffed olives.