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Tomato and Cheese Salad
Peel six medium-sized tomatoes, chill, and scoop out a small quantity of pulp from the centre of each. Fill cavities, using equal parts of Roquefort and Neufchâtel cheese worked together and moistened with French Dressing. Arrange on lettuce leaves and serve with French Dressing.
A stuffed-tomato salad that depends entirely on two things the original leaves unexplained: what "French Dressing" meant in 1896, and what American Neufchâtel actually is.
- French DressingIn this book it means a plain vinaigrette — oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, mixed until it thickens; period proportions run from about two to three parts oil to one of vinegar. It is not the sweet orange bottled dressing that later took the name, which would fight the Roquefort.
- NeufchâtelThe American cheese sold under this name is a fresh, soft, unripened cheese with slightly less fat than cream cheese, and that is what is wanted here. It is not the bloomy-rind Norman Neufchâtel; full-fat cream cheese is the closest common substitute.
- Working the cheeses togetherEqual parts (take it by weight), both at cool room temperature, mashed with a fork until uniform before any dressing goes in. Cold Roquefort crumbles rather than blends, and cheese moistened too early turns to a loose paste that will not hold in the tomato.
- How much dressing in the fillingOnly enough to make the mixture spreadable — a teaspoon or two for six tomatoes' worth. The original gives no quantity; how much you need depends on the moisture of the cheese.
- PeelingDip the tomatoes in boiling water for 15 to 20 seconds, then into ice water, and the skins slip off. Peel first, then chill thoroughly, then hollow — a cold tomato holds its shape under the spoon.
- DrainingAfter scooping, salt the cavities lightly and invert on a rack for ten minutes. Otherwise tomato liquid pools under the cheese and thins the dressing on the plate.
- Yield and servingSix tomatoes, one per person as a salad course, or halve them for a smaller first course. Fill no more than an hour ahead and keep chilled; the cheese absorbs moisture and slumps if it stands longer.
Stuffed-tomato salads were a fixture of American cookbooks from the 1890s onward, when tomatoes had become a summer staple, and when the newly commercial soft cheeses made a spreadable filling easy to assemble. Roquefort was among the imported cheeses available in eastern American cities at the time, and blending it with a mild fresh cheese both stretched an expensive ingredient and tamed it for palates unused to strong blues. Fannie Farmer's salad chapter is full of this construction — a raw vegetable shell, a rich filling, a lettuce leaf beneath, and vinaigrette poured at the table — a pattern that suggests a salad was meant to be composed and arranged rather than tossed.