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Prawn Salad
Remove the skins and heads of the prawns and arrange them on a dish with a handful or so of pickled parsley, dredging over them some salt. Then squeeze the juice of two or three lemons into a basin, beat it together with three tablespoonfuls of the best salad oil until well mixed, when it may be poured over the prawns and served.
A bare lemon-and-oil dressing over cold shellfish, written for a kitchen where prawns arrived already boiled. The instructions assume a great deal of knowledge that is worth spelling out.
- The prawns are cooked prawnsNothing in the text tells you to cook anything, because a nineteenth-century cook bought or boiled her prawns in advance and chilled them. Use prawns simmered in salted water until just opaque, about two to three minutes, then cooled; raw prawns dressed in lemon juice will not be safe or pleasant.
- "Skins and heads"Shell and head; you may also wish to remove the dark intestinal vein along the back, which the text does not mention.
- "Pickled parsley" is almost certainly picked parsley"Pickled parsley" may well be a misprint for picked parsley -- that is, leaves picked from their stems and used as a bed or garnish. Read it as a generous handful of parsley leaves.
- The dressing is very sharp as writtenTwo or three lemons yield roughly 1/4 to 1/2 cup of juice against 3 tablespoons of oil, an acid-heavy ratio far from the modern 3:1 oil to acid. Taste as you go and stop when it suits you.
- "Best salad oil"This generally meant olive oil, though seed oils were also sold under the name. A light olive oil, or a neutral oil with a spoonful of good olive oil stirred in, is close to the intent.
- Beating it togetherLemon juice and oil will separate within a minute or two. Whisk hard just before pouring, or add a small spoonful of Dijon-style mustard to hold the emulsion, which is a departure from the text but keeps the dressing from pooling.
- Salt timingThe salt is dredged over the prawns before the dressing goes on, which seasons the shellfish directly rather than the dressing. Keep it light: prawns boiled in salted water are already seasoned.
- YieldAbout 1 lb of shelled cooked prawns serves four as a first course. Dress and serve at once; the acid will begin to firm and dull the flesh if it stands.
Oscar Tschirky was not a cook but the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel, and the 1896 volume that carries his name is less a personal notebook than a compendium of what a large American hotel kitchen turned out around the turn of the century. Shellfish salads of this kind sat at the plain end of the repertoire: cold prawns or shrimp, a green garnish, and an oil-and-lemon dressing shaken up at the last moment, in contrast to the thick mayonnaise-bound salads that were then coming into fashion in the same dining rooms. The word prawn was used loosely in American books of the period and often meant simply a large shrimp; British and continental usage drew firmer distinctions. The recipe's terseness is typical of the book, which was marketed to household as well as professional readers.