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Russian Vegetable Salad (Select two moulds of suitable)
Select two moulds of suitable shape and size (tin basins or earthen bowls will do) and chill in ice water. Have ready cooked balls, cut from carrots and turnips, and cooked string beans and cauliflower, all marinated with French dressing. Drain the vegetables, dip them into half-set aspic, and arrange against the chilled sides of the moulds; then fill the moulds with aspic jelly. When set, with a hot spoon scoop out the aspic from the centre of each mould and fill in the space with a mixture of the vegetables and jelly mayonnaise, leaving an open space at the top to be filled with half-set aspic. When thoroughly chilled and set, turn from the moulds, the smaller mould above the other. Garnish with flowerets of cauliflower, dipped in aspic and chilled, and lettuce. Serve with mayonnaise.
This is an assembly job rather than a cooking one: everything is cooked and dressed in advance, and the work is in the layering of aspic. The one thing that decides success is temperature — the aspic must be at the point of setting, thick as unbeaten egg white, when you line the mould.
- "Half-set aspic"This is the hinge. Aspic that is still liquid will slide off the vegetables and pool at the bottom; aspic that has set firm will not bond to the next layer. Keep the bowl of aspic over cold water and stir it now and then, and warm it briefly if it stiffens too far.
- Aspic jellyA clear, well-flavoured stock (veal, chicken or vegetable) set with gelatine. For a jelly firm enough to unmould, use rather more gelatine than a soft dessert set: about 1 envelope, roughly 2 1/4 teaspoons, per 1 to 1 1/2 cups of liquid.
- Jelly mayonnaiseMayonnaise with a little dissolved gelatine or liquid aspic beaten in so that it sets soft. Add the gelatine while it is barely warm and whisk steadily, or it will string. Roughly 1 teaspoon of gelatine bloomed in a tablespoon of water per cup of mayonnaise.
- The mouldsTwo plain bowls of different sizes, one nesting shape above the other, produce the tiered effect; the recipe allows either tin or earthenware. Chilling them in ice water, as directed, makes the first coat of aspic grip almost on contact.
- Vegetable ballsCut with a melon baller from raw carrot and turnip, then boiled until just tender.
- Drain thoroughlyFrench dressing here is oil and vinegar, and any that clings will keep the aspic from setting cleanly and cloud it. Drain the marinated vegetables on a cloth or paper before dipping.
- The hot spoonDip a metal spoon in boiling water, wipe it, and it will cut through set aspic without tearing the shell. Work from the centre and leave a wall at least half an inch thick.
- Timing and unmouldingAllow about 30 minutes of refrigeration between layers and at least 3 hours, or overnight, for the finished moulds. To turn out, dip the mould in warm water for a few seconds, then invert onto a chilled plate.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; two moulds of this kind would serve roughly 8 to 10 as a first course or buffet salad. If you make the mayonnaise from scratch, use pasteurised eggs.
Salade russe — cooked root vegetables and beans cut small, bound with mayonnaise — reached English and American cookbooks by way of French restaurant practice in the second half of the nineteenth century, and is often traced to the kitchens of Russian aristocratic households staffed by French chefs. What this version shows is less Russian than the fashion for aspic work, in which a competent salad was made into architecture. Books in this vein are full of these lined and layered moulds, and they assume a cook with ice, patience and time to spare. The tiered double mould here, scooped hollow with a hot spoon and refilled, is showmanship of a kind that vanished with the servant-keeping household; the salad inside it survives in every deli case as "Russian" or "Olivier" salad.