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Stuffed-Cucumber Salad
Pare a short cucumber and cut it lengthwise in two parts; remove the seeds and let chill in ice water for an hour. Chop together the solid part of a peeled and seeded tomato, half a slice of new onion, a stalk of celery and a sprig of parsley; mix with mayonnaise or a boiled dressing and use as a filling for the well-dried halves of cucumber.
Serve on cress or lettuce.
A simple assembly salad from the era when cucumber boats were a standard luncheon plate. The technique is sound; only a few details need translating.
- The hinge: dry the shellsAfter an hour in ice water the hollowed halves hold a surprising amount of liquid in the seed cavity. Blot them inside and out with a towel or the dressing will slide off and pool on the greens.
- "A short cucumber"The recipe gives no dimensions; read it simply as a small, stubby cucumber rather than a long one. A Kirby or small pickling cucumber is a reasonable match; an English cucumber cut into shorter lengths also works, though its skin is thin enough that some cooks would leave it unpared, contrary to the recipe's instruction to pare.
- "New onion"A freshly pulled, uncured onion, mild and sweet, rather than a cured storage onion; a scallion white or a slice of sweet onion is the usual modern substitute. Half a slice amounts to only a small quantity, roughly a teaspoon chopped.
- Boiled dressingNot a mayonnaise but a cooked dressing thickened with egg and flour or cornstarch and sharpened with vinegar. It tends to set firmer than mayonnaise when chilled, which suits a filling that has to sit on a plate.
- Mayonnaise and raw eggPeriod mayonnaise was made with raw yolks and made up fresh. If you make your own for this, use pasteurized eggs, or use commercial mayonnaise, which is acidified.
- Salt and drainageSalting the chopped tomato and celery and letting it drain for ten minutes before dressing keeps the filling from weeping. The original omits salt entirely; season the vegetables, not just the dressing.
- Yield and timingOne cucumber gives two halves, that is two small salad servings or one plated first course. Fill no more than about thirty minutes before serving; the shells soften and the filling separates beyond that.
- CressThe recipe does not say which cress. Period American books used "cress" for either watercress or garden/upland cress; any small peppery green will do the job the recipe wants, which is to cut the sweetness of the tomato.
Stuffed cucumbers belong to the vogue for "cases" and "boats" that ran through American and English luncheon cookery from the 1890s into the 1920s: tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers and apples hollowed out and filled, usually served cold on a bed of greens. The appeal was visual as much as culinary, and it depended on the same three things you see here — a raw shell, a chopped filling, and a bound dressing to hold it. Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Dainties, by Janet McKenzie Hill, first published around the turn of the twentieth century, was aimed squarely at that world of ladies' luncheons, club suppers and chafing-dish entertaining, where a hostess without a full kitchen staff needed dishes that could be built quickly and looked composed on the plate. The recipe's two dressing options, boiled dressing and mayonnaise, left the cook a choice of finish.