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Spanish Salad
Bleach some heads of endive, and arrange them in a mound in the middle of a dish; peel some rather large tomatoes, divide them into sections, and place them round the endive. Boil some eggs very hard, and when cold, shell and set them in a mortar after having cut them into halves and scooping out the yolks, being careful not to break the whites. Pick some shrimps or lobster, and put them in the mortar with the yolks, and pound to a paste. Fill the hollow of the whites with the paste and level it off at the top, and arrange them round the tomatoes. Strew some chopped shallot and sweet pepper over the endive; mix together in equal proportions some oil and vinegar; season the mixture with salt and pepper, and pour it over the salad. Serve at once.
A composed salad from the classic repertoire: everything is built on the platter and dressed at the last moment. The instructions assume a cook who already knows what "bleach" and "pick" mean.
- "Bleach some heads of endive"This is the whitening of the leaves, not a cooking step and certainly not household bleach. Belgian endive (witloof) sold today is already forced in darkness and comes pale; simply trim the base and separate or halve the heads. If you are using curly endive/frisée, use the blanched inner leaves and discard the coarse green outer ones.
- Peeling the tomatoesScore the skins, dip 15-20 seconds in boiling water, then into ice water and the skins slip off. Use firm, ripe fruit so the sections hold their shape on the plate.
- The mortarA mortar and pestle gives the yolk-and-shellfish filling a smoother, more cohesive paste than a food processor, which tends to whip it. Either works; if you use a machine, pulse rather than run it. A tablespoon of the dressing or a little softened butter helps the paste bind and pipe.
- Shrimps or lobster"Pick" means shell and remove the vein or cartilage. Cooked, well-drained shellfish only -- wet shrimp will loosen the paste. Roughly equal weight of shellfish to yolks is a good starting ratio.
- Sweet pepperMost likely a fresh red or green bell pepper, chopped fine, rather than paprika or a dried chile. Seed and core it; a brief soak of the chopped shallot in cold water takes off the raw bite.
- Equal oil and vinegarA 1:1 dressing is far sharper than modern taste allows. Three parts oil to one part vinegar is the usual ratio now; if you want the period effect, use a mild wine vinegar rather than distilled.
- Dress at the last momentThe instruction to serve at once is the hinge. Endive softens once it meets acid, and the stuffed whites can slide. Assemble the mound and pour the dressing over just before it goes to the table.
- YieldNo quantities are given. Two heads of endive, four tomatoes, six eggs and about 6 oz of picked shellfish makes a first course for six.
Oscar Tschirky, who was never a cook by trade but ran the Waldorf's dining rooms as maître d'hôtel, compiled his 1896 Cook Book from the hotel's kitchen repertoire, and this salad is squarely in the French service tradition that repertoire followed. Composed salads of this kind -- built into a centrepiece and garnished with stuffed egg whites -- showed off the dining room as much as the kitchen. The name looks like geographic shorthand rather than a claim of Spanish origin; in menu French of the period, tomatoes and sweet peppers are the usual markers of an espagnole garnish. Endive forced pale in the dark, sold as Belgian or witloof chicory, had reached wide commercial cultivation only in the preceding few decades.