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Valentine Salad No. 1
1 qt. can tomatoes. 1 large onion. 1 cup water. 1 box Knox gelatine, dissolved in 1/2 pt. water; add tablet with gelatine to make a pretty red. Salt and pepper to taste.
Put tomatoes, onion cut in pieces, water and seasoning on fire in stewpan. Let cook until tomatoes are soft. Strain over gelatin and stir until thoroughly dissolved. When cool, put in square pan an inch deep. Cut out with heart cake cutter and serve on lettuce with wreath of celery. Write Valentine with mayonnaise across heart.
A tomato aspic cut into hearts — straightforward once the gelatine and the vanished "tablet" are translated.
- A box of KnoxThe old carton held four envelopes of granulated gelatine, each about 1 tablespoon (7 g) and each rated to set 2 cups of liquid. Four envelopes for roughly 6 cups of liquid here gives a stiff, sliceable jelly, which is what you need if the hearts are to hold their shape.
- The "tablet"The recipe assumes a small colouring tablet supplied with or alongside the gelatine; such tablets were sold in the period and are long gone. A few drops of red food colouring do the same job, or leave it out — a good canned tomato gives plenty of colour on its own.
- MeasuresA quart can of tomatoes is about 4 cups, a little more than a modern 28 oz can. Half a pint of water is 1 cup.
- Bloom before dissolvingSprinkle the gelatine over the cold half-pint and let it stand five minutes before the hot tomato goes over it. Dumping dry granules into boiling liquid leaves rubbery threads that never dissolve.
- Strain properlyPush the tomato through a fine sieve rather than just pouring it off. Seeds and skin suspended in the jelly spoil both the cut edge and the clarity.
- Chilling and the panAn inch-deep square pan, rinsed with cold water first, unmoulds far more willingly. Four hours in the refrigerator is a minimum; overnight is better for clean cutting.
- Cutting and writingDip the cutter in hot water between hearts. The mayonnaise lettering wants a paper cone or a small piping bag, and thinning the mayonnaise slightly with lemon juice makes it flow without breaking.
- YieldA pan of this depth yields roughly six to eight hearts depending on the size of the cutter, with trimmings that can be chopped and spooned round the base.
Moulded salads were then at their height: granulated gelatine sold by the box had made jellying an everyday operation rather than a matter of boiling calves' feet, and the tomato aspic became a standard savoury version, served on lettuce as a luncheon course. The heart cutter, the celery wreath and the piped greeting mark this as a "fancy" or holiday salad, the kind of set piece expected at a February ladies' luncheon or church supper — the recipe is really a decorating scheme built on a very plain jelly.