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Star Chicken Salad
Mix together 1 cup white meat of cooked chicken or fowl cut in dice 3 whites hard-cooked eggs cut in dice, and marinate with 2 tablespoons salad oil 1 tablespoon vinegar 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Cook 1 cup peeled white mushroom caps in White stock until tender, then drain, chill and cut in small pieces. Add 1 cup celery cut lengthwise and crosswise in small pieces and 1 cup shelled Brazil nuts, peeled and cut in small pieces. Soak 1 tablespoon gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water, dissolve over hot water and add slowly to 1 cup mayonnaise dressing. Mix with other ingredients and pack in star-shaped mold. Chill, turn out on bed of Lettuce leaves. Fill center and cover outside with Mayonnaise dressing and sprinkle with 3 yolks hard-cooked eggs rubbed through strainer. The stock in which mushrooms are cooked may be used in Chicken and Clam Bouillon or in a sauce for another meal.
A jellied chicken salad from the era when the molded luncheon salad was the centerpiece of ladies' entertaining. The one thing to get right is the gelatin: it must be fully dissolved and still warm when it goes into the mayonnaise, and the whole mixture must be packed and chilled before it begins to set, or the salad will be lumpy rather than sliceable.
- GelatinOne tablespoon of granulated gelatin is close to one modern envelope, though an envelope is a scant tablespoon (about 1/4 oz). Soak it in the cold water for about five minutes, melt it over hot water until completely clear, and add it to the mayonnaise in a thin stream while whisking, or it can seize into threads.
- White stockA light stock made from veal or chicken bones and aromatics, with no browning. Any mild low-sodium chicken stock works; the mushrooms will usually be tender in well under ten minutes at a simmer.
- Peeling mushroomsPeriod cooks peeled the caps for whiteness. It is unnecessary with today's cultivated white mushrooms; wipe them and trim the stem instead.
- Brazil nutsSold shelled year-round now. To "peel" them, cover with boiling water for a minute or two and rub off the brown skin, which is bitter. One cup chopped is a lot of nut in this salad; three-quarters of a cup is closer to modern taste.
- MayonnaiseThe cross-reference is to the book's own dressing, which would have been made from scratch and is likely thicker and sharper than jarred mayonnaise. Commercial mayonnaise works, but slacken it with a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice so the gelatin does not set it to putty.
- The moldA star mold is optional; any 1.5 to 2 quart mold or loaf pan will do. Rinse it with cold water rather than oiling it, and chill at least 4 hours, preferably overnight, before unmolding. Dip the mold briefly in warm water and invert onto the lettuce.
- YieldAbout 5 cups of packed salad, serving 6 to 8 as a luncheon main course.
- Food safetyThis is a cold protein salad that sits at the table, and the mayonnaise coating goes on after unmolding. Keep it refrigerated until service and do not leave it out more than two hours.
Molded salads bound with gelatin were the height of American luncheon fashion from the 1890s through the 1930s, and books written specifically for hostesses treated them as decorative architecture as much as food: the shaped mold, the bed of lettuce, the sieved yolk sprinkled over the top like gold dust. Commercial granulated gelatin, marketed from around 1890, is what made this possible in an ordinary kitchen, replacing the long boiling of calves' feet. The Brazil nuts are a period marker too. Imported in quantity through the early twentieth century and prized for their richness, they turn up repeatedly in luncheon salads and confections of the 1910s and 1920s. The closing note about saving the mushroom stock for a bouillon or sauce reflects the thrift that ran alongside all this display in domestic-science writing of the day.