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Cucumber Salad
1 pint grated cucumber Salt and paprika 2 tablespoons oil 1 tablespoon gelatine 2 tablespoons cold water 6 halves walnuts watercress Grate enough peeled cucumber to make one pint, and season with salt, paprika and oil. Add gelatine, softened in cold water, to heated cucumber mixture. In bottom of each mold place half a walnut meat and pour over mixture. Cool and when hardened serve on bed of cress with mayonnaise, sprinkled with paprika.
A moulded cucumber salad of the sort that filled the salad course in the 1920s and 30s. It is simple, but the gelatine step is unforgiving if the mixture is either too cool to dissolve the granules or hot enough to weaken them.
- The hinge: dissolving the gelatineSoften the tablespoon of gelatine in the cold water until spongy, then stir it into the cucumber pulp while it is warm. The recipe says only "heated," and gives no temperature: warm enough that the granules melt away completely, but there is no need to boil it.
- Gelatine strengthOne tablespoon is a little more than a modern 7 g envelope, which is the sachet sold for setting a pint. Expect a set firm enough to unmould rather than a soft spoonable one.
- Cucumber waterA pint of grated cucumber throws off a great deal of liquid. Either count that liquid as part of your pint or drain some off and salt the pulp lightly first, otherwise the finished moulds weep on the plate.
- PaprikaPaprika here means a mild sweet sort, used as much for colour as flavour. Smoked or hot paprika will overwhelm the cucumber.
- The walnut in the bottomThe half walnut sits in the base of the mould so that it becomes the crown when the salad is turned out. A pint shared between six moulds means small ones, about a third of a cup each.
- UnmouldingChill at least four hours, then dip the moulds briefly in warm water and invert onto the cress. A thin film of oil brushed inside the moulds first makes this easier.
- YieldSix walnut halves means six individual moulds, so this serves six as a salad course.