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Potato and Egg Salad
Mix 2 cups cold boiled potatoes cut in cubes 1 cup celery or cabbage cut in small pieces 2 or 3 hard cooked eggs chopped fine 2 tablespoons chopped pickle 2 tablespoons chopped green pepper or pimiento 1 tablespoon chopped parsley and Few drops onion juice. Moisten with Cream Dressing and serve in nests of Lettuce or cabbage leaves.
A composed potato salad from the era when the dressing was cooked rather than whisked, and the salad arrived in a leaf cup rather than a bowl. Nothing here has been outlawed by time, but several of the instructions assume knowledge the book expected its readers to have.
- Cream DressingThe capitalisation marks this as a cross-reference to another page in the book, not an instruction to pour on heavy cream. In books of this kind a cream dressing is usually either a cooked (boiled) dressing thickened with flour and egg yolk, sharpened with vinegar and thinned with cream, or simply cream sharpened with vinegar and salt. A good-quality mayonnaise loosened with a spoonful or two of cream and a splash of cider vinegar sits in the same place on the plate.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a sieve, or squeeze it in a corner of a cloth. Half a teaspoon is plenty for this quantity; the point is a background note, not an onion presence.
- PotatoesBoil them whole in the skin and peel while warm if you can, then cool before cutting, which keeps the cubes from breaking down. A waxy variety holds its edges; a floury baking potato will crumble into the dressing. Two cups of cubes is roughly two or three medium potatoes.
- Season the potatoes firstThe recipe does not say it, but the salad stands or falls on this: toss the warm cubes with a little vinegar and salt before they cool, then dress. Cold potato dressed cold tastes of nothing however good the dressing is.
- Hard cooked eggsProlonged cooking at a high temperature is what produces the grey ring. Bring the eggs to a boil, cover, take off the heat and leave ten to twelve minutes, then chill in cold water. Chop them coarsely rather than fine if you want them visible in the finished salad.
- Pickle and pimiento"Chopped pickle" is unspecified; a sweet cucumber pickle suits the dressing better than a sour dill spear, but either is within the instruction. Pimiento came from a can or jar and was a common pantry item; a jarred roasted red pepper, drained and blotted dry, is the direct substitute.
- Nests of lettuceUse the cupped inner leaves of iceberg or butterhead, or the pale heart leaves of a cabbage, chilled and dried. Fill shortly before serving, since the dressing will soften and wilt the leaf as it stands.
- YieldAbout four generous luncheon servings, or six as part of a spread of the sort this book plans for.
The cooked cream dressing this recipe calls for belongs to the older American style of salad dressing, made with flour, egg and milk rather than a large quantity of oil, and it remained common alongside the commercially bottled mayonnaise that became widely available in the early twentieth century. The lettuce nest is a characteristic presentation of the period, and the choice offered between celery and cabbage, green pepper and pimiento suggests a recipe written to be made from whatever was on hand.