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Spinach-and-Egg Salad
(See cut facing page 84.) Prepare and mould the spinach as in the preceding recipe. Have ready, also, some cold boiled eggs and mayonnaise. Turn the spinach from the moulds on to nests of shredded lettuce. Dispose, chain fashion, around the base of the spinach, the whites of the eggs cut in rings, and press a star of mayonnaise in the centre of each ring. Pass the yolks through a sieve and sprinkle over the tops of the mounds, and place above this the round ends of the whites.
This is an assembly recipe rather than a cooking one: everything is cooked and cold before the plating begins, and the whole point is the arrangement. The hinge is moisture — spinach that has not been squeezed nearly dry will slump out of the mould and bleed green water into the mayonnaise.
- "The preceding recipe"Not reproduced here; a moulded spinach of this period is boiled, drained, pressed very dry and chopped fine before being packed into small moulds. Timbale moulds, custard cups or a muffin tin all work; pack it in with the back of a spoon so there are no air pockets.
- Squeeze harder than feels reasonableCooked spinach holds an astonishing amount of water. Press it in a towel or against a sieve until no more runs, or the moulded mounds will collapse on the lettuce within minutes.
- Cold boiled eggsTen to twelve minutes at a bare simmer, then straight into cold water. Older eggs peel more cleanly than very fresh ones, and a clean peel matters here because the white rings are on display.
- Cutting the ringsSlice the eggs crosswise with a thin, wet blade or an egg slicer, then push the yolk out of the centre of each slice to leave a ring. The "round ends of the whites" are the two domed caps left over at each end of the egg.
- The mayonnaise star"press" implies the mayonnaise was forced through a bag or tube rather than spooned; a small star tip gives the shape. The mayonnaise needs to be stiff enough to hold it, as a loose emulsion will spread flat inside the ring.
- Raw-yolk mayonnaiseA mayonnaise of this period is normally uncooked yolk and oil, and the salad is never heated. If you make it from scratch, use pasteurized eggs, or a good bottled mayonnaise thinned with a little lemon juice.
- Sieved yolkPush the yolks through a fine sieve with the back of a spoon while they are cold and dry. Do it at the last moment, as sieved yolk dries and hardens quickly.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities; one mould and one egg per person is a workable ratio. Assemble shortly before serving and keep it cold.
Janet McKenzie Hill edited the Boston Cooking School Magazine in the era when the American salad became an exercise in architecture rather than a bowl of greens. The reference to "the cut facing page 84" is the whole explanation: these recipes were written to accompany photographic plates, and the reader was expected to reproduce a picture. Moulded vegetable purées, chains of egg rings, piped stars of mayonnaise and sieved yolk scattered like pollen all belong to the same fashion. Spinach earned its place because it holds a mould and reads as a strong dark green against white and yellow, and because chafing-dish and luncheon cookery of the 1890s and 1900s is often said to have been addressed to hostesses working without a full kitchen staff but expected to produce something that looked composed.