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Watercress
Method.-Mix the potatoes and nuts, add the oil and mix again; add the other seasonings, and, when well mixed, set aside in a cool place an hour or more. Remove the coarse stalks from two bunches of watercress that have been well washed and dried. Season with French dressing and arrange in a wreath about the edge of the salad.
This is the method half of a composed potato-and-nut salad; the printed ingredient list did not travel with the page, so quantities for the potatoes, nuts and oil are unstated. The proportions below are the standard ones for the period, but treat them as reconstruction rather than the author's own.
- Missing ingredient listThe only quantity in the surviving text is two bunches of watercress, plus a chilling time of "an hour or more." A workable modern reconstruction, not the author's own, is about 3 cups diced cooked potato to 1 cup chopped nuts, dressed with 3 to 4 tablespoons oil.
- The hinge: oil before acidOil before the other seasonings -- The text has the oil mixed in first, before the remaining seasonings. Coating the potato in oil ahead of the vinegar and salt is a common practice said to help the cubes stay distinct, though the recipe gives no reason for the order.
- Potatoes still warmBoiled potatoes take up dressing more readily while still warm, so dicing and dressing them once they are cool enough to handle, rather than after refrigeration, gives better-seasoned potato. The recipe does not specify.
- French dressing, 1900 senseNot a sweet bottled dressing. In American cookbooks of this period the term generally means oil, vinegar, salt and pepper beaten to a temporary emulsion, commonly in the region of two to four parts oil to one of vinegar. Mix it fresh.
- "Other seasonings"In salads of this type that means salt, white or cayenne pepper, and a little vinegar or lemon juice; onion juice and chopped parsley are common additions. Season assertively, since chilling flattens salt.
- The nutsThe recipe does not say which nut. English walnuts, pecans and almonds all appear in salads of this kind. If yours have been sitting in a pantry, a few minutes in a moderate (about 350F) oven before chopping will freshen the flavor; that temperature is a modern addition, not the book's.
- Dressing the cress lastWatercress wilts within minutes of meeting vinegar. Toss it and set the wreath in place immediately before the dish goes to table, and dry the leaves thoroughly first or the dressing will slide off.
- YieldAs reconstructed, four to six servings as a side salad. The wreath arrangement assumes one large serving bowl or a flat platter rather than individual plates.
The recipe belongs to the turn-of-the-century vogue for the "composed" salad, in which cooked vegetables were bound with dressing, chilled, and then framed with something green for contrast. Watercress served that framing role in American cookery of the 1890s and 1900s: it arrived at market in bunches rather than bags, as the recipe's own "two bunches" attests, and had a peppery bite that stood up to potato and nut. The name of the entry refers to the garnish rather than the substance of the dish. The word "wreath" for a ring of greens around the rim of a bowl appears in contemporary salad recipes.