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Sheepherder's Salad
A friend in Nevada sent us this recipe just as she received it from an old sheepherder: "Well, you take some cold beans and some cold potatoes and cut the potatoes up and throw them in with the beans, and some cold meat if you got it, and cut up an onion or anything else that's around, and put the oil off some sardines on it and some vinegar and salt and pepper, and if you got some cold pancakes left, why, just cut them up, too, and shake the whole works together and you got something."
An oral recipe with no quantities, which is the point: it is a formula for using up what is in the camp box. A few decisions will make the difference between a good bean salad and a heavy one.
- The hinge is the dressingSardine oil carries most of the flavour, and one flat tin yields only a tablespoon or two. Stretch it with an equal amount of olive oil, and use roughly one part vinegar to three parts oil so the beans do not turn sour and mealy.
- What beansCamp beans would most likely have been pinto or navy, simmered plain. Two cups of cooked beans, or a drained and rinsed 15-oz can, makes a workable base for this quantity. Rinse canned beans well or the starchy packing liquid will cloud the dressing.
- PotatoesUse a waxy potato, boiled and cooled, cut in half-inch dice. Dress the potatoes while they are still slightly warm if you can manage it; they absorb the vinegar and oil in a way cold potatoes will not.
- Cold meatAny cooked leftover works, cut small: roast lamb or mutton in keeping with the source, but beef, ham or chicken all sit well against the vinegar. About a cup, diced, balances two cups of beans.
- The onionRaw onion cut into a cold salad stays sharp for hours. A small red onion sliced thin and left in the vinegar for ten minutes before the rest goes in takes the edge off without cooking it.
- The pancakesNot as strange as it reads. Cold pancakes cut in strips behave like a soft crouton, soaking up dressing and bulking the dish. Add them at the last moment, as they soften quickly once dressed.
- Shake the whole worksTaken literally in a lidded pot or a covered bowl, shaking breaks up the potatoes. Turn it over gently with two spoons instead, and let it sit twenty minutes before serving.
- YieldBuilt on two cups of beans, this feeds four as a main-course salad. It keeps a day refrigerated, minus the pancakes.