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Celery and Apple Salad with Mayonnaise
Scrape, pare and thoroughly clean and drain well two stalks crisp white celery. Peel and core three medium, sound apples, Cut both celery and apples into thin julienne-shaped strips. Place them in a salad bowl. Season with three tablespoons salad dressing gently mix, and just before serving add two tablespoons mayonnaise mix again and serve immediately.
A two-ingredient salad that lives or dies on texture: cut everything the same size, dress it at the last moment, and it stays crisp and bright.
- "Two stalks celery"In this period "stalk" is used both for a whole head and for a single rib, so the quantity is ambiguous. Two heads to three apples is a workable ratio, but if you prefer apple forward, one head of celery is plenty for three apples.
- Julienne means matchsticksCut both celery and apple into strips about 2 inches long and 1/8 inch thick. Uniformity is the whole point here: ragged apple chunks weep juice and thin the dressing.
- Two dressings, on purposeThe "salad dressing" of the first step is a tart oil-and-vinegar or boiled dressing, used to season and lightly acidulate; the mayonnaise goes in only at the end to bind. Skipping the first stage gives you a heavier, blander salad.
- Keeping the apple paleThe recipe says nothing about browning, but the acid in that first dressing will help. Cut the apples last and toss them immediately, or hold the cut strips in lightly acidulated water and drain them thoroughly before dressing.
- Apple choice"sound" apples means firm and unbruised. A crisp, mildly tart variety holds its shape and flavour best; sharp cooking apples such as Bramley are too sour raw for this dressing.
- Crisping the celeryScrape off the strings with a peeler and soak the ribs in ice water for 20 to 30 minutes, then dry them well. Wet celery dilutes the mayonnaise and the salad goes slack.
- Serve immediatelyThis is not a make-ahead salad. Within half an hour the apple softens and the celery gives up water; assemble it as the plates go out.
- YieldNone given. On these quantities, roughly four as a side salad, or two as a light lunch course.
Celery and apple in a creamy dressing is the plain form of what most cooks now call Waldorf salad, the walnut-and-apple version associated with New York's Waldorf hotel in the 1890s and generally credited to its maître d'hôtel Oscar Tschirky, whose original was simply apple, celery and mayonnaise. Celery was still something of a luxury vegetable in the late nineteenth century, grown in trenches and blanched pale, and it was served often enough on its own in cut-glass celery vases at the table; pairing it raw with apple showed off the crispness that all that trouble had produced.