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Summer Salad
Select six fresh cucumbers all the same size. Pare, cut in halves lengthwise, scoop out the centers and lay in water till wanted. Dry and fill with a mixture of sweetbreads and peas, dressed with mayonnaise. Set on a green lettuce leaf on individual plates. Serve with dainty plain bread and butter sandwiches.- Anne Warner.
A composed salad that assumes two things the text never says: that the sweetbreads arrive already cooked and cooled, and that the cook is working with a period cucumber. Both need attention.
- Sweetbreads are the hingeThe recipe treats them as a pantry item, but they need full preparation first: soak in several changes of cold water for a few hours until the water runs clear, blanch, cool, then peel away the membrane and press between plates before dicing. They must be cooked through, to 160F, before they go anywhere near the filling.
- Buying sweetbreadsVeal sweetbreads — the thymus and pancreas of a calf — are a special order from a butcher rather than a supermarket item. Figure about 1 lb for six filled cucumbers. Cooked diced chicken makes a reasonable substitute if the point is the presentation.
- PeasIn the period these would have been shelled fresh peas, briefly boiled and cooled. Frozen peas thawed and patted dry behave much the same way here.
- Cucumbers"Six fresh cucumbers all the same size" implies a cucumber thick enough to hollow into a boat. Modern slicing cucumbers work; English cucumbers have little seed core to scoop out and thinner walls, so the shells hold a filling less securely. Scoop with a teaspoon or a melon baller.
- The water bathSoaking the pared halves in cold water keeps them from browning and firms them. Salt the hollows lightly and invert on a rack for fifteen minutes before drying, or the shells will weep into the mayonnaise on the plate.
- MayonnaiseThe period version was made by hand with raw yolks. If you make your own, use pasteurized eggs, particularly since this salad sits at room temperature on the plate.
- Yield and timingTwelve halves, so two per plate for six people as a lunch course. Fill no more than half an hour before serving and keep chilled; the filling loosens as it warms.
Cucumber shells stuffed with a dressed meat salad belong to a specific moment in American entertaining, when the ladies' luncheon demanded a cold course that could be plated individually and looked composed rather than tossed. Sweetbreads were the luxury protein of that table — understood as delicate enough for women and invalids, which is why they turn up constantly in turn-of-the-century salads, patties and creamed dishes. The recipe is attributed to Anne Warner. The closing instruction for "dainty plain bread and butter sandwiches" is the period's shorthand for a luncheon, not a dinner.