Lobster Salad
Put a large lobster over the fire in boiling water slightly salted; boil rapidly for about twenty minutes; when done it will be of a bright red color, and should be removed, as if boiled too long it will be tough; when cold, crack the claws, after first disjointing, twist off the head (which is used in garnishing), split the body in two lengthwise, pick out the meat in bits not too fine, saving the coral separate; cut up a large head of lettuce slightly, and place on a dish over which lay the lobster, putting the coral around the outside. For dressing, take the yolks of three eggs, beat well, add four table-spoons salad-oil, dropping it in very slowly, beating all the time; then add a little salt, cayenne pepper, half tea-spoon mixed mustard, and two table-spoons vinegar. Pour this over the lobster, just before sending to table. -Mrs. A. Wilson, Rye, N. Y.
A plain boiled lobster with a hand-beaten mayonnaise, written before the sauce had a settled name in American books. Two things need adjusting: the boiling time and the oil-to-yolk ratio in the dressing.
- Boiling timeTwenty minutes overcooks most lobsters sold today. Figure roughly 10-12 minutes for a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb lobster and 15-18 for one of 2 1/2 to 3 lb, counting from the moment the water returns to a boil. The recipe's own warning is the important part: it tells you to take the lobster out as soon as it is bright red, since boiling too long makes it tough.
- The dressing is a mayonnaiseThree yolks to four tablespoons of oil gives a thin, sharply eggy sauce rather than a thick one. Modern proportions run closer to 3/4 cup oil per yolk; if you want something that clings to the lobster, keep dribbling oil in until it thickens, then adjust with the vinegar.
- Salad oilIn 1880s American kitchens this generally meant olive oil, though cottonseed oil was widely sold under the same name. Either olive oil or a neutral oil works; a strong extra-virgin olive oil will dominate the lobster.
- Mixed mustardPrepared mustard paste, not dry powder. A half teaspoon of Dijon or a plain yellow mustard is the equivalent, and it helps the emulsion hold.
- Raw yolksThe sauce is never cooked. Use very fresh eggs, or pasteurized shell eggs or pasteurized yolks if you are serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised, and keep the finished salad cold.
- Coral and tomalleyThe coral is the roe of a female lobster and turns bright red-orange when cooked; a male lobster will have none, so do not plan the garnish around it. The green tomalley from the body cavity is edible but is where contaminants concentrate, and is best left out.
- Dress at the last minuteThe instruction to pour the dressing on "just before sending to table" is doing real work. Mayonnaise sitting on lettuce collapses it within minutes, and the lobster meat weeps liquid that thins the sauce.
- YieldOne large lobster and a head of lettuce serves four as a first course, or two or three as a light main dish.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to a family of American compilation cookbooks of the 1880s built from contributed receipts, and the credit line here -- Mrs. A. Wilson of Rye, New York -- shows how little those books answered to their titles: a southern-branded volume carrying a salad from the Long Island Sound shore, where lobster was cheap and local. Lobster had long been an everyday northeastern food rather than a luxury, though by the 1880s it was already shifting from cheap staple to something dearer in northeastern cities, and canned lobster shipped inland by rail put it on tables far from the coast. The dressing is a mayonnaise in all but name; American books of the period also called it simply "dressing" for lobster or chicken salad, and the word mayonnaise, already in print in American cookbooks by this time, was still working its way into general household use. The advice to lay the meat over cut lettuce with the coral ringing the outside reflects the era's taste for salads built as a composed picture on the dish, with the lobster's head kept aside purely for show.