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Egg Salad
Boil six eggs hard and leave until cold; then peel and cut into halves lengthwise, and dust a small quantity of pepper, salt and cayenne over each half of egg, and pour over it a few drops of oil and vinegar. Take small quantities and chop together, of chervil, chives and tarragon leaves; place them in the center of the dish, and arrange the halves of egg around this. Wash, drain and chop a few young lettuce leaves, place them around the eggs, and serve.
A composed salad of hard-boiled eggs dressed on the plate rather than tossed in a bowl. The only real technique is the boiling, and the only real flavour is in the herbs, so both are worth attention.
- YieldSix eggs, twelve halves, serves four as a first course or two as a light lunch. Oscar gives no quantity for the herbs; a loosely packed tablespoon of each, chopped together, is right for six eggs.
- Boiling the eggsThe recipe says only "boil hard" and gives no time; long hard boiling is what produces the grey-green ring and sulphurous edge. Cover the eggs with water, bring to a boil, cover and take off the heat for ten minutes, then chill in cold water. Leaving them to go cold before peeling, as instructed, is still sound.
- Oil and vinegarThere is no emulsified dressing here: the oil and vinegar go on separately, a few drops of each, so the seasoning stays sharp. The recipe gives no ratio; go lighter on the vinegar than the oil. A mild olive oil and a white wine vinegar suit it better than anything assertive.
- ChervilThe hardest of the three herbs to find now and the one that defines the dish, with a faint anise note. Fresh parsley plus a pinch of tarragon is the usual substitute, though it is not the same thing. Do not use dried chervil, which has almost no flavour.
- CayenneA common seasoning in cookery of the period, used as a background heat rather than a chilli flavour. A scant pinch across all twelve halves is enough; it should sharpen the egg, not announce itself.
- The lettuceWashed, drained and chopped, it acts as a green border, not a bed. Dry it thoroughly or the plate weeps. Butterhead or the pale inner leaves of romaine stand in well for the "young lettuce" of the period.
- Assembly and timingDress the eggs shortly before serving. Cut surfaces left sitting in vinegar and the chopped herb mound both suffer if the dish stands.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf from 1893 and published this collection in 1896, and its salad chapter is a fair record of what a New York hotel understood a salad to be at the time: something composed and arranged on the plate, not tossed. The herb trio here is straight out of the French kitchen, close to the *fines herbes* of chervil, chives, tarragon and parsley that Escoffier's generation treated as standard, and its appearance in an American hotel book reflects how far French practice governed the fashionable dining room. Chervil is harder to buy now than the recipe's four lines suggest, which is the main obstacle to reproducing the dish exactly.