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Combination Fruit Salad
6 halves of stewed pears, fresh or canned Lettuce leaves 36 white cherries Boiled dressing Place the half pears on crisp lettuce leaves. Stone the cherries and arrange them around the pears. Serve with a boiled dressing.
An assembly recipe rather than a cooked one: the only real work is poaching the pears if you are not using canned, and making the dressing the original assumes you already know.
- Boiled dressingNot mayonnaise. It is a cooked dressing of egg yolk, flour or cornstarch, sugar, mustard, vinegar and milk or cream, thickened over hot water and cooled before use. It is tangier and lighter than mayonnaise, and it needs to be fully chilled or it will wilt the lettuce.
- White cherriesSweet pale, yellow-blushed varieties: Royal Ann (also sold as Napoleon), or the later-bred Rainier. White cherries were commonly sold canned in this period; fresh Rainiers in season are the closest match. Ordinary dark sweet cherries work but will bleed color into the dressing.
- Stoning cherriesThirty-six cherries go quickly with a hand pitter or a chopstick pressed through the stem end over a bottle neck. Do it over a bowl and save the juice for the dressing or a drink.
- Stewed pearsIf poaching your own, use firm Bosc or Bartlett halves in a light syrup, barely simmering until a knife enters without resistance, then cool them in the syrup. Canned halves need only draining and blotting dry so the dressing clings.
- YieldSix servings, one pear half and six cherries each. The lettuce and boiled dressing place it with the salad course rather than dessert, though the original does not say.
- AssemblyDry the lettuce thoroughly and chill everything before plating. Dress at the table or spoon the dressing into the pear cavity rather than over the whole plate, which turns soft within minutes.