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Marguerite Salad (See cut facing page Arrange)
(See cut facing page 84.) Arrange garden cress on a serving-dish; in the centre dispose whites of hard-boiled eggs cut in eighths lengthwise, to resemble the petals of a flower, and sift the yolks into the centre. When ready to serve, sprinkle with French dressing and toss together.
An assembly salad rather than a cooked dish: the whole point is the daisy pattern, so the work is in the eggs and the timing of the dressing.
- Garden cressThis means peppery cress grown from seed (the sprouted "curled cress" or mustard-and-cress of British seed packets), not watercress and not mache. Fine-leaved microgreens or a mix of arugula thinnings give the same bite; watercress works but is coarser under a light dressing.
- French dressing, as this book means itIn this period it means oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, whisked or shaken to combine; period ratios run anywhere from two to four parts oil to one of vinegar, so follow the book's own French dressing recipe if it gives one. Nothing creamy or sweet, which would smother the design.
- How muchThe original gives no quantities. For four as a first course, figure a generous quart of loosely packed cress, four hard-boiled eggs, and about a quarter cup of dressing.
- The eggsCook them to firm yolks but no further: 10 to 12 minutes in barely simmering water, then straight into ice water so the whites stay tender enough to cut into eighths without splitting. Older eggs peel more cleanly than very fresh ones.
- Sifting the yolksPress the cooked yolks through a fine sieve or a tea strainer directly over the centre of the dish so they fall as loose crumb, not paste. Pushed through with a spoon while still slightly warm they break up most readily; this garnish is the classic oeuf mimosa.
- Dress at the table"When ready to serve" is the hinge. Cress goes limp quickly once it meets vinegar, and the tossing the recipe calls for destroys the flower anyway, so bring the dish out intact, sprinkle, and toss in front of whoever is eating it.
- Make-aheadEggs can be boiled and the whites cut hours in advance; keep them covered so they do not dry and grey at the edges. Sift the yolks at the last minute, since they stale and clump quickly once exposed.
Marguerite is French for daisy, and the name describes the plate rather than any regional dish: white egg-white petals radiating from a sifted yellow yolk centre on a bed of green. Salads of this kind belong to the turn-of-the-century American vogue for composed, pictorial salads, when the course had moved from a side dish to a set piece and cookbooks began carrying illustrations to prove it, the "cut facing page 84" that the text refers to. Janet McKenzie Hill, sometimes associated with books of this kind, edited The Boston Cooking School Magazine and taught in the same New England domestic-science tradition as Fannie Farmer, where precision of appearance was treated as part of the instruction. The sieved-yolk garnish survives in French kitchens as mimosa, named for the yellow blossom it resembles, and turns up on everything from asparagus to the modern egg salad still sold as oeufs mimosa.