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Lettuce and Walnut Sandwiches
Mix chopped walnuts with Mayonnaise dressing and spread on thin slices of bread; lay a leaf of lettuce over each; then another slice of thin, unbuttered bread.
A three-line sandwich with no quantities at all, which is typical of loose-leaf tea-table books. The proportions are yours to set, but a few details decide whether it holds together.
- Working proportionsAbout 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts to 1/4 cup mayonnaise gives a spread thick enough to stay put. Any looser and it soaks through the unbuttered slice.
- The unbuttered slice mattersThe unbuttered slice -- the recipe specifies that the top slice is unbuttered; it says nothing about buttering the bottom slice either, so the dressing alone does the binding. Without butter as a moisture barrier these go soft quickly, so assemble close to eating time.
- MayonnaiseIn this period mayonnaise meant a raw-yolk emulsion beaten at home. Commercial jarred mayonnaise is made with pasteurized egg and is the sensible choice here, since nothing in this sandwich is cooked.
- Bread"thin slices" suggests a firm, close-grained white sandwich loaf, sliced as thin as it will cut cleanly; a day-old loaf slices more neatly. Crusts are often trimmed for tea sandwiches, though this recipe does not say to.
- Dry the lettuceWash and spin or pat the leaves completely dry, and use the tender inner leaves of butterhead or romaine. Wet lettuce is the usual reason a sandwich like this collapses.
- Toast the nuts, or don'tThe recipe says only "chopped walnuts," so raw is the default reading. Five minutes in a 350F oven before chopping sharpens the flavour if you want it less demure.
- YieldOne standard loaf's worth of thin slices, cut into quarters or fingers, makes roughly three to four dozen tea sandwiches. Cover with a damp cloth and refrigerate no more than an hour ahead.
Lettuce-and-nut fillings belong to the great age of the American tea sandwich, roughly the 1890s through the 1920s, when commercially milled soft white bread and reliably emulsified mayonnaise are often said to have arrived at about the same moment and produced a whole genre of dainty, crustless food for afternoon calls, luncheons and church socials. Walnuts were the workhorse nut of these books, available year-round, while lettuce supplied the crispness that a soft filling lacked.