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Apricot Salad
24 halves of apricots 1 cup cream cheese 2 tablespoons cream 1/3 cup chopped nuts cream mayonnaise lettuce Mix together cheese, cream and chopped nuts. Fill halves of apricots with mixture and serve four on each individual plate, with mayonnaise dressing.
A composed salad of the type that filled American luncheon menus between the wars: fruit, soft cheese, nuts and a spoonful of dressing on a leaf of lettuce. It needs almost no cooking, so the work is in the assembly.
- YieldTwenty-four halves served four to a plate gives six portions. Scale by the plate rather than the cup.
- Which apricotsThe recipe does not say; canned apricot halves in syrup are a likely reading for a salad of this kind, though ripe fresh halves would also serve. If using canned, drain them well and blot dry, or the dressing will slide off and pool.
- Cream cheese quantityA cup of cream cheese is roughly 8 oz, which in the period would have meant several of the small foil-wrapped bars then sold. Let block cream cheese come to room temperature before beating in the cream or it will not take the nuts evenly.
- "Cream" hereThe two tablespoons are liquid cream, added to loosen the cheese to a pipeable paste. Heavy cream gives the richest result; milk works but sets up softer.
- The nutsThe recipe says only "chopped nuts"; walnuts or pecans suit it. Chop them fine — coarse pieces make the filling crumble when the halves are lifted.
- LettuceThe salad is meant to be plated on a lettuce leaf, though the method does not say so. Use a cupped iceberg or Bibb leaf per plate; it keeps the halves from sliding.
- MayonnaiseIn a book of this vintage the dressing may be a cooked boiled dressing rather than jarred mayonnaise. Either suits; thin it slightly with cream if it is too stiff to spoon.
- Assembly and chillingFill the halves and refrigerate at least half an hour so the cheese firms, then dress just before serving. Filling ahead and dressing early leaves you with a watery plate.
Stuffed-fruit salads like this one belong to the era when the salad course became a showcase for the refrigerator and the can opener. Cream cheese sold in small bars, reliable commercial mayonnaise and year-round canned apricots all reached American kitchens in quantity in the early twentieth century, and menu writers combined them into cold plates that could be built in advance by one person and carried out looking deliberate. It reflects the period habit of treating a substantial fruit-and-cheese salad as a luncheon dish in its own right rather than an accompaniment.