No. 2667

Truffle Salad a la Gambetta

Salade de Truffes a la Gambetta

Mince six fine peeled Piedmontese truffles, weighing eight ounces, put them into a bowl with three artichoke bottoms, previously cooked and cut into eight pieces. Rub through a sieve four hard-boiled egg-yolks, lay them in a bowl with two tablespoonfuls of mustard, work well together, then incorporate three gills of oil and tarragon vinegar; rub the bottom of a salad bowl with a clove of garlic, set the truffles in, and the artichokes over; cover all with some mayonnaise (No. 607), mixing in also some tarragon, chervil, chives and parsley, all finely chopped.

GREEN SALADS (Salades Vertes).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional larder and a reader who can already make mayonnaise; the result is a raw truffle salad dressed twice over. A few notes make the proportions and the sequence clear.

The truffles are rawNothing here is cooked but the artichokes and the eggs. Ranhofer says to mince the peeled truffles and dress them; cut them fine and dress them at the last moment.
Piedmontese trufflesIn 1894 this most likely meant the white truffle of Alba. Eight ounces of fresh white truffle is a small fortune today; a realistic version uses one to two ounces, sliced paper-thin, and accepts that the salad becomes a garnish rather than a bowlful.
Three gillsA gill is half a cup, so three gills is one and a half cups of oil and tarragon vinegar together. Ranhofer gives no ratio between them; work to roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar and taste.
Two dressings, not oneThe egg-yolk, mustard and oil mixture is a cooked-yolk dressing in its own right, and then the salad is covered with mayonnaise as well. If that seems redundant, use the yolk dressing to coat the truffles and artichokes and finish with only a thin veil of mayonnaise, or halve the yolk dressing.
The mustardTwo tablespoons is a great deal of modern hot English mustard. The recipe specifies only "mustard"; a smooth Dijon-type is the safer assumption, and that quantity of Dijon is enough.
Artichoke bottomsTrimmed bottoms from good jarred or frozen artichokes work; canned hearts are softer and wetter, so drain and dry them well or they will thin the dressing.
The garlic rubA cut clove wiped once around the bowl is all that is intended. Anything more will bury the truffles, which are the only reason the dish exists.
Raw egg in the mayonnaiseNo. 607 is built on raw yolks. If serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, use pasteurized eggs or a commercial mayonnaise thinned with lemon.
YieldRanhofer gives no yield; the quantities suggest a course for several people, and at modern truffle quantities it is better treated as a small plate for four.

A Little History

The name honors Léon Gambetta, the republican statesman who was among those who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and who served briefly as premier before his death in 1882. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), names many dishes in this manner: a French political name, a Piedmontese luxury, and a dressing assembled from the classical repertoire. That a salad of half a pound of raw truffles could be filed among ordinary vegetable salads says a good deal about the clientele Delmonico's was feeding.