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Chiffonade Salad
This salad consists of all the salads in season. For example, lettuce, romaine, chicory, escarol, tomato, beets and celery cut in long slices. The dressing for this salad is made as follows: Take one hard-boiled egg and mash it as fine as possible with a fork; then add two pinches of paprika and a pinch of salt, half a teaspoonful of French mustard, a teaspoonful of hashed chives, a teaspoonful of hashed estragon, two tablespoonfuls of oil and three tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Add this to the salad, mix it well together, and serve.
A composed green salad with a mimosa-style dressing bound by mashed hard-boiled egg. The dressing is the only fixed part; the greens are whatever the market has.
- Chiffonade here means the cut, not a garnishChiffonade here refers to the cut -- The recipe specifies only that the components are "cut in long slices," i.e. long narrow strips rather than chunks; the name points to shredded leaves, though the text gives no further detail on technique.
- Estragon is tarragonFrench tarragon, chopped fine. Dried tarragon works at about a third of the volume but loses the anise lift that makes this dressing distinctive.
- French mustard means DijonFrench mustard means a Dijon-type mustard -- In period American usage this generally indicated a smooth, sharp prepared French mustard rather than a sweet or mild one. Half a teaspoon of Dijon is a reasonable reading.
- The vinegar ratio is deliberate but bracingThe vinegar ratio is bracing -- Two tablespoons oil to three of vinegar inverts the modern vinaigrette proportion, softened somewhat by the egg. With a standard sharp vinegar expect it to bite; evening the ratio toward 1:1 is defensible if it is too sour for you.
- EscarolEscarole, the broad-leaved endive. Since escarol is listed separately, "chicory" here most likely means curly endive (friseé) rather than the blue-flowered root.
- Beets lastCooked beet strips will bleed and tint the rest of the bowl once mixed. Add them at the very end, or lay them on top rather than tossing them through.
- Dress at the tableShredded greens wilt fast under this much vinegar. Mash the egg and whisk the dressing ahead, keep it cold, and combine immediately before serving.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the greens are undefined and only the dressing is quantified (one egg, two tablespoons oil, three of vinegar). Scale the dressing with the volume of greens rather than making it richer.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from 1893, and his 1896 book records the hotel's repertoire at the moment when French service was being translated for American diners — hence estragon and escarol sitting untranslated on the page. Chiffonade, from the French for a rag or shred, was a kitchen term for finely ribboned greens long before it reached English-language cookbooks; in French practice it named both a garnish for soup and a salad of mixed shredded leaves. The instruction that the salad "consists of all the salads in season" is the informative part: a hotel with a standing produce account could put five or six leaf varieties on one plate, which one might read as a quiet display of supply. The vinaigrette is bound with hard-boiled egg mashed with a fork, giving body without the labor of an emulsified mayonnaise.