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Lettuce Salad with Oil
A six quart bowl of shred lettuce. 12 hard-boiled eggs. 1 pint of vinegar. 1 tablespoonful of sugar. 1/2 pint of olive oil. Pepper and salt. Chop the yolks and whites of the eggs separately, and mix the whites with the lettuce. Pour the oil over and stir up. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar, with the salt and pepper, and add them to the lettuce and toss over with a fork till well mixed. Strew the chopped yolks on top.
A banquet-scale salad from a professional pastry cook's book: the quantities are meant for a buffet, and the dressing ratio is the opposite of what a modern cook expects.
- The ratio is the hingeA pint of vinegar to a half pint of oil is two parts acid to one part fat, the reverse of the modern three-to-one vinaigrette. Mix a small amount, taste it on a leaf, and add oil or hold back vinegar to suit.
- Scale and yieldA six-quart bowl of shredded lettuce is roughly four to five large heads and serves twenty to twenty-five as a side. Quartering the whole recipe gives about a quart and a half of lettuce with 3 eggs, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup oil and a scant teaspoon of sugar.
- Which vinegarUnspecified here. Cider vinegar was common in American kitchens of the period, with white or wine vinegar also possible. Strength was not standardised as it is now, so taste before committing to the full quantity.
- Olive oil then and nowA gentle, buttery oil suits the dish better than a peppery modern extra-virgin, which will fight the vinegar.
- Dress at the last momentShredded lettuce collapses fast under this much acid. Have the eggs chopped and the vinegar mixture standing ready, then oil, toss, acid, toss, and carry it to the table.
- Why the whites go in and the yolks go onCrumbled whites disappear into the leaves while the chopped yolks stay dry and bright on top. Pushing the yolks through a coarse sieve instead of chopping gives a finer, more even layer.
- Season the vinegar, not the bowlDissolving the sugar, salt and pepper in the vinegar first distributes them evenly. Salt sprinkled directly onto oiled leaves will slide off and sit in the bottom of the bowl.
Salads dressed with oil, vinegar and hard-boiled egg appear widely in American cookery of the late nineteenth century, and the separated white and yolk garnish is the same idea the French call mimosa, after the yellow blossom. The heavy hand with vinegar and the pint measures point to volume service rather than a household table, and the sugar dissolved in the vinegar is more characteristic of American than of French dressing of the period.