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Tomato En Surprise
Select perfect tomatoes of uniform size. Dip for a moment in boiling water and remove the skin without destroying the smoothness of the surface. Remove a piece from the stem end and scoop out most of the pulp, leaving the shell intact. To the pulp add diced celery, tart apples and pieces of finely minced green pepper shell. The bowl in which this mixture is prepared should be rubbed with a slice of onion so that a faint flavor of it will be given to the mixture. Season with salt and pepper and pour over the prepared pulp a little French dressing. Fill the tomato shells with this mixture, put on each a spoonful of mayonnaise and decorate the top with a slice of truffle.
A cold stuffed tomato that depends almost entirely on handling: the shells must stay firm and the filling must not weep. Everything else is assembly.
- Blanch briefly, then chillA moment in boiling water means 10 to 20 seconds, just until the skin loosens at the scored stem end. Drop the tomatoes straight into ice water afterward or the flesh softens and the shell will slump under the filling.
- Drain the shells and the pulpInvert the hollowed tomatoes on a rack for 15 minutes, and drain the scooped pulp in a sieve before dressing it. Undrained, the filling releases liquid and the mayonnaise slides off.
- Chop the pulpThe instruction to add the pulp back assumes you cut it up; tomato interior is mostly seed and gel. Squeeze out the seeds and dice the remaining flesh before mixing in the celery, apple and pepper.
- "Green pepper shell"This means the flesh of a green bell pepper with the seeds and white ribs removed, minced fine. A tablespoon or so is enough for four tomatoes; more and it dominates.
- French dressing of the periodNot a sweet orange bottled dressing but simply oil and vinegar, salted and peppered; period ratios ran anywhere from two to four parts oil to one of vinegar. Use it sparingly, a teaspoon or two per tomato, since the vegetables give up their own moisture.
- Keep the apple from browningDice tart apple last and toss it in the dressing immediately. Granny Smith or a firm russet holds its shape; a soft eating apple turns to mush against the vinegar.
- The truffleA thin round of black truffle was a common garnish in cold dishes of the period. A sliced black olive, a caper, or a little chopped chive gives the same dark accent without the cost.
- Yield and servingOne tomato per person on a leaf of lettuce, as a first course or lunch salad. Fill no more than an hour before serving and keep refrigerated.
Dishes labeled en surprise in turn-of-the-century American cookery were built on concealment: a plain-looking exterior hiding a made-up filling, as in baked Alaska or ice cream frozen inside a fruit shell. The stuffed tomato salad was one of these, appearing in hotel menus and household manuals alike once greenhouse and Southern-shipped tomatoes made uniform, unblemished fruit available outside of high summer. The truffle slice on top belongs to the period's salad fashion, a garnish of the sort often said to have marked a cold vegetable dish as fit for a company luncheon. Commercial mayonnaise was not yet common in American kitchens, so the spoonful on each tomato would have been made at home from oil and egg yolk.