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Tomato and Celery Salad
6 tomatoes 2 cups celery, diced 1/3 to 1/2 cup mayonnaise Lettuce leaves Select firm tomatoes of a good size, cut a slice from the top of each, and scoop out all the seeds and soft pulp, being careful not to break the sides. Cut celery into small dice, mix it with mayonnaise dressing, fill the shells with the mixture, place one teaspoon of the dressing on top of each tomato and serve individually on a bed of lettuce leaves, placing three or four small leaves on each plate and the tomato in the center.
A straightforward stuffed-tomato salad from the era when the composed salad plate was the mark of a careful hostess. Almost nothing needs translating; what it needs is attention to the tomatoes themselves.
- Choosing the tomatoesFirm, thick-walled fruit holds its shape after hollowing; a soft heirloom will collapse under the filling. Round slicing tomatoes of roughly 6-8 oz each work best.
- Hollowing without splittingCut the top slice thin and scoop with a teaspoon or a small melon baller, working around the inner wall rather than digging at it. Leave a shell about a quarter inch thick.
- DrainingThe recipe skips this. Salt the insides lightly and invert the shells on a rack for 15-20 minutes, or the filling will sit in a pool of tomato water within minutes of plating.
- Celery diceSmall dice means about a quarter inch. Two cups is roughly four to five ribs from the heart; the outer ribs are stringy and want peeling with a vegetable peeler first.
- Dressing quantityA third to a half cup of mayonnaise for two cups of celery gives a bound salad, not a swimming one. Start at the lower figure and add only if the celery looks dry.
- MayonnaiseRecipes of this period generally expect a homemade egg-yolk mayonnaise, thicker and sharper than jarred, though commercial mayonnaise was also available by then. Commercial mayonnaise loosened with a spoonful of lemon juice comes close.
- Holding and yieldFill no more than an hour ahead and keep refrigerated; the shells weep if they stand. Six tomatoes serve six as a first course or a light lunch salad.
The stuffed tomato was a fixture of American salad courses in the decades either side of 1900, when a salad was often expected to be constructed and served in individual portions rather than tossed in a bowl. Tomato shells, green pepper cups and scooped cucumber boats all did the same job: they gave a mayonnaise-bound mixture a shape and a place on the plate, and they let the cook plate ahead of service. Celery, cheap, crisp and available through the winter from storage, was a common filler in this kind of salad.