No. 2665
Onion Salad-Bermuda
Salade d'Oignons de Bermude
Mince the onions very finely, either with a knife or the machine, and season them with salt, pepper, oil and vinegar.
Ranhofer gives four lines and no quantities, which is typical of The Epicurean: the reader is assumed to be a professional who knows the proportions of a vinaigrette. A few decisions are left to you.
- The onion is the whole dishBermuda onions were prized for being mild, sweet and juicy enough to eat raw. A modern sweet onion — Vidalia, Walla Walla, Maui, or a large flat Spanish onion — is the right substitute. A hard yellow storage onion will make this harsh and unpleasant.
- "Very finely" means very finelyThe instruction is the hinge. Ranhofer says mince, though the mention of "the machine" leaves room for very fine chopping or paper-thin shaving. Cut fine, the onion softens in the dressing within minutes; cut thick, it stays aggressive.
- "The machine"In an 1890s hotel kitchen this probably meant a hand-cranked vegetable cutter or chopping machine clamped to the bench. A mandoline or the slicing disc of a food processor does comparable work.
- Proportions for the dressingThree parts oil to one of vinegar was a common standard of the period and is still sound, with salt and pepper dissolved in the vinegar first. Ranhofer names no oil or vinegar here; olive oil and wine vinegar are a reasonable assumption.
- Take the bite downIf the onions are sharper than you want, soak the slices in cold water for ten minutes, then drain and dry them thoroughly before dressing. Water left clinging will thin the vinaigrette.
- TimingDress this shortly before serving. Left an hour, the onions weep and the salad turns watery and limp.
- Yield and useOne large onion will dress enough for roughly four as a side. Ranhofer places it among the vegetable salads and offers no serving suggestion; it suits cold meat or grilled steak.
The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its salad chapter runs to dozens of numbered entries, each pared to the minimum a trained cook needs. The Bermuda onion earned its own number because it was then a distinct and seasonal luxury: onions grown in the Bermudas from seed generally traced to Tenerife and the Canary Islands were shipped into New York in spring, well ahead of the domestic crop, and were valued for a sweetness and mildness that made raw onion salad possible at all. The name later drifted into a general term for any large flat sweet onion, and much of what was sold as "Bermuda" in the twentieth century came from Texas rather than the islands. That a one-sentence recipe merited a place in a book of this scale says less about the dish than about the ingredient's standing on a fashionable table.