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Coconut Fruit Salad
1 1/2 cups mixed diced tart apples and celery 1/2 cup shredded coconut 1 tablespoon lemon-juice 4 tablespoons oil 4 tablespoons orange-juice Salt Paprika Lettuce leaves Currant or plum jelly Mix the apples, celery, and coconut. Sprinkle with the lemon-juice. Add a French dressing made from the oil and orange-juice, with salt and paprika to taste. Line a salad-bowl with lettuce leaves and pile chilled salad in center. Dot with currant or plum jelly.
A Waldorf variant from the era when "French dressing" meant any shaken oil-and-acid mixture. The dressing here is unusually mild, and that is the thing to watch.
- The dressing is barely acidicEqual parts oil and orange juice, with no vinegar, gives a dressing far sweeter and softer than a modern vinaigrette. If it tastes flat, add more of the lemon-juice rather than increasing the orange.
- CoconutShredded coconut in 1920s-30s American recipes was often the moist sweetened kind sold in tins or packets, though unsweetened desiccated was also available. Sweetened flake works as written; unsweetened desiccated coconut will taste drier and more assertive, and benefits from a few minutes soaking in the orange juice.
- ApplesUse a firm tart apple that holds its shape -- Granny Smith, Braeburn, a good russet. Dice and toss with the lemon-juice first thing to keep the cut faces from browning while the rest is assembled.
- CeleryCut the celery to the same size as the apple, roughly quarter-inch dice, and use the crisp inner ribs. Outer stalks are stringy and will spoil the texture.
- PaprikaHere it functions as much as color as flavor. A mild sweet paprika is what suits it; smoked paprika will overwhelm the fruit.
- ChillingHalf an hour in the refrigerator is enough. Longer and the salt draws water from the apple and celery, thinning the dressing and slackening the crunch.
- YieldAbout four side servings. Dress and chill no more than an hour ahead, and line the bowl with lettuce only at the moment of serving so the leaves stay upright.