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Stuffed Tomato Salad No. 2
4 tomatoes 12 fillets anchovies 8 clams 1 small tomato 1 egg, hard cooked watercress, minced fine French dressing Peel four medium sized tomatoes and scoop out seeds and some pulp, leaving hollow shell. Chill these in the icebox. Prepare salad mixture with anchovies, clams and tomato, all finely minced, and hard cooked egg and two sprigs watercress, hashed fine. Bind together with French dressing and stuff tomato shells with this mixture. Dress with Sauce Supreme. Mask tomatoes with this and put each on lettuce leaf.
A stuffed-tomato salad from the era when a luncheon plate was expected to be assembled rather than tossed. The ingredient list runs together in the original; read it as four tomato shells plus a fifth small tomato that goes into the filling.
- Drain the shellsAfter scooping the tomatoes, salt the cavities lightly and invert them on a rack for 20-30 minutes before chilling. Otherwise the shells weep and the dressing pools at the base of the plate.
- The clamsEight clams means eight shucked clams, minced. Raw shellfish carries a real risk of Vibrio and norovirus, and warm-weather harvest is the worst case; use canned or briefly steamed and chopped clams, or buy from a dealer who can vouch for the harvest tags if you want them raw.
- Anchovy filletsTwelve oil-packed fillets is roughly one standard 2 oz tin. Blot them and mince fine, and add no salt to the filling until you have tasted it, since the anchovies and the dressing both carry plenty.
- Sauce SupremeClassically a velout s finished with cream, sometimes with egg yolk; this page gives no quantities for it. Used cold as a mask it must be thick enough to cling, so if you are working from a hot sauce, cool it fully and beat it smooth before coating. A thinned mayonnaise will stand in.
- Two dressings, two jobsThe French dressing only binds the minced filling, so keep it light -- a couple of tablespoons. The Sauce Supreme is the coating that goes over the outside of the stuffed tomato.
- Mincing mattersEverything in the filling should be cut to the same fine dice, not pureed. The point of the dish is that the anchovy, clam, egg and watercress stay distinguishable on the tongue.
- TemperatureShells, filling and sauce all need to be cold before assembly, and the finished salads should not sit out more than half an hour. Warm anchovy and clam turn assertive very quickly.
- YieldFour stuffed tomatoes, one per person as a luncheon or first-course salad.