Beet Salad
French dressing 4 hard-cooked eggs 6 cooked beets parsley Cut beets in cubes; marinate with French dressing; let stand one hour. Chop the whites of the eggs until fine; press yolks through a sieve. Arrange beets on salad dish in a mound. Garnish base of mound with alternating rows of white and yolk of egg, and parsley.
A composed salad rather than a tossed one, and the appeal is entirely in the contrast of dark beet against the sieved egg. A few notes on quantities and handling.
- French dressingIn this period the term means simply oil and vinegar with salt and pepper, roughly three parts oil to one of vinegar, whisked to a temporary emulsion. Not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under that name today. About 1/2 cup is enough for six beets.
- Beet sizeSix beets here probably means ordinary table beets of two to three inches, so perhaps 1 1/2 lb trimmed. Boil until a skewer passes easily, 35-50 minutes depending on size (roasting whole beets will take longer), then slip the skins while still warm.
- The hour of marinating mattersThis is the hinge. Beets are bland and watery straight from the pot, and the standing hour is what carries salt and acid into the cubes. Cut them warm and dress them warm for faster absorption, then let them come to room temperature.
- Dress the beets separatelyKeep the dressed beets away from the egg until the moment of serving. Beet juice bleeds pink into anything porous, and the point of the garnish is the clean white-and-yellow banding.
- Hard-cooked eggsCover with cold water, bring to a boil, cover and take off the heat for 10-12 minutes, then chill in cold water. A yolk cooked hard but not chalky pushes through a sieve into fine granules; overcooked yolk turns to paste.
- Sieving the yolkA medium-mesh strainer and the back of a spoon is all that is wanted, and the yolk should fall as loose crumbs. Do not press it into a solid mass in the sieve or scrape it out with a spatula.
- YieldServes six as a side salad. It holds an hour or two in the refrigerator once assembled but the egg dulls and stains after that.
Beets dressed with oil and vinegar and finished with sieved egg resembles what French kitchens of the period called mimosa, a term used for sieved-yolk garnish and traditionally explained by a likeness to the flower. Lowney's Cook Book was published by the Walter M. Lowney chocolate company as an advertising volume, and although it is best remembered for its chocolate work it is a general household manual, with a substantial salad department. The insistence on mounding, banding and garnishing here reflects a period taste for salads judged largely on presentation at table.