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Celery Salad with Mayonnaise Dressing
Prepare the celery as for salad, and when it is in the salad-bowl, season with one-half pinch of pepper, one-half pinch of salt, and three tablespoonfuls of Mayonnaise dressing. Stir well just prior to serving.
One of the shortest entries in the book, and it assumes you have already read Oscar's instructions for dressing celery and for making mayonnaise. Two points carry the whole dish: the celery must be cold and dry, and the mayonnaise goes on at the last moment.
- "Prepare the celery as for salad"Trim the root and leaves, separate the ribs, peel off the coarse strings from the outer stalks with a vegetable peeler, and cut into short lengths or thin crosswise slices. Wash, then dry thoroughly in a towel or spinner; wet celery thins the dressing into a puddle.
- A pinch, then and nowA pinch is conventionally taken as what you can pick up between thumb and forefinger, roughly 1/8 teaspoon; the book does not define the term, so half a pinch works out at only approximately a scant 1/16 teaspoon of each. Season by taste rather than by arithmetic here.
- Proportion and yieldThe recipe gives no quantity of celery and no number of servings; three tablespoons of mayonnaise will lightly dress about a head's worth of cut celery. Add the dressing in two stages and stop when the pieces are coated, not swimming.
- Dress at the tableSalt draws water out of celery within minutes. Season and stir immediately before it goes out, exactly as written, or the bowl will be sitting in brine by the time it reaches anyone.
- The mayonnaiseOscar's dressing is the classic uncooked emulsion of raw yolk, oil, vinegar and seasoning. Since it is never heated, use pasteurized eggs, or a good commercial mayonnaise, if you are serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised.
- Choosing celeryThe celery of this period was generally sold blanched and pale, and is usually described as milder than modern Pascal. With today's green stalks, favor the inner ribs and the pale heart; the outer ribs are best kept for stock.
- ServingIce-cold is the point. Hold the cut celery in ice water for 20 minutes, dry it, and chill the bowl; the dish is a foil for rich food.
Celery was a luxury vegetable in the American Gilded Age, sold blanched and pale, and displayed upright in tall cut-glass celery vases on the dinner table as a course in its own right, eaten plain with salt. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 from his years as maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf, shows the raw stalk in the salad bowl, dressed with the then-fashionable mayonnaise; the same kitchen and the same fondness for celery produced the Waldorf salad, generally credited to Tschirky, whose original version was nothing but apple, celery and mayonnaise. Entries this terse are common in the book, which gives little more than the proportions for the house version of a dish.