Lobster Salad
1 Lobster 2 Tablespoons Vinegar Lettuce Mayonnaise 2 Tablespoons Oil Teaspoon Salt 1/2 Teaspoon Pepper Cut the lobster in small squares; season with the vinegar, salt, pepper and oil and let stand in cool place for an hour. Line the salad bowl with crisp lettuce leaves, and after mixing the lobster with the mayonnaise place in bowl on the leaves.
A plain nineteenth-century composed salad that assumes two things the text never says: that the lobster arrives already boiled and picked, and that the mayonnaise is made at home. Get those right and the rest is assembly.
- The lobster is cookedThe recipe assumes a lobster already boiled and shelled, though it never says so. A 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb hard-shell lobster yields roughly a cup to a cup and a quarter of picked meat, enough for two as a lunch course or four as a first course. Include the claw and knuckle meat, which many cooks prefer to the tail.
- The hinge: the hour in the cool placeThe vinegar-and-oil hour is not optional garnish, it is the seasoning step. Undressed lobster tastes flat under mayonnaise. But do not stretch it much past an hour, as the acid begins to firm and dull the meat.
- Proportions of the dressingTwo tablespoons oil to two tablespoons vinegar is a sharp 1:1 marinade rather than a vinaigrette; the recipe says nothing about draining, but it is not intended to be served as a pool of dressing. Cider or white wine vinegar suits it better than distilled.
- Half a teaspoon of pepperThat is a heavy hand by current taste, particularly with pre-ground pepper. Start with a quarter teaspoon of freshly ground white or black pepper and correct after the mayonnaise goes in, since the mayonnaise mutes it.
- "Cool place" means the refrigeratorIn a household of this period this meant a larder, cellar shelf or icebox. Chill at about 40F, and keep the finished salad cold until it goes to the table.
- Homemade mayonnaiseThe recipe simply names mayonnaise, which in this period meant a hand-beaten yolk-and-oil sauce, thicker than jarred. If you make your own and are serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, use pasteurized eggs. Good bottled mayonnaise loosened with a squeeze of lemon is a fair substitute.
- Dress at the last momentFold the mayonnaise through the drained lobster just before serving. Mixed and held, the mayonnaise thins as it takes on the marinade liquid and slides off the lettuce.
- The lettuce"Crisp lettuce leaves" meant whole cupped leaves of a firm head lettuce used as a liner, not a bed of torn salad. Chill and dry the leaves thoroughly or the bowl will weep.
Lobster salad was a fixture of American entertaining once rail transport and canning had turned lobster from a cheap coastal commodity into a fashionable luncheon and supper dish inland. Its appearance in a bride's cookbook is telling: such volumes, which are often said to have been given as wedding presents and compiled by churches, clubs or flour and stove companies, taught a young housekeeper the small repertoire she was expected to produce for callers and card parties. A cold composed salad on lettuce, dressed with homemade mayonnaise, was exactly that kind of dish, since it required no cooking on the day and could be built from a lobster bought or boiled the morning before. The terse style here, with the ingredients run together and the mayonnaise simply named rather than explained, assumes she already knew how to make mayonnaise and how to boil a lobster.