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Macedoine Salad
Prepare a macedoine of vegetables. (If inconvenient to do that, thoroughly drain a pint of canned macedoine.) Place in a salad bowl. Season with four tablespoons French dressing. Mix well and serve.
PUDDING, SUEDOIS (SWEDISH) One ounce thick honey, two ounces bread crumbs, one tablespoon fine sugar, quarter of a sound lemon, one whole egg, the whites of two eggs, half ounce butter, one ounce flour, half gill cold millk and a tablespoon Swiss kirsch. Place all the ingredients except the whites of the eggs in a bowl. Briskly mix with a wooden spoon for two minutes. Beat up the whites to a stiff froth and add to the preparation, gently mix, and then fill six lightly buttered pudding moulds. Place them in a tin, pour boiling water into the pan up to half the height of the moulds and set in a hot oven for thirty minutes. Remove, unmould on a hot dish and serve with a gill hot maple syrup poured over.
Two entries run together here: a plain vegetable salad and a steamed Swedish pudding. The measurements in the pudding are given by weight in ounces, which is the easier of the two to follow accurately.
- What a macedoine isA macedoine is mixed vegetables cut into small, uniform dice — usually carrot, turnip, green beans and peas — cooked separately so each keeps its texture, then combined. The author's own equivalent for the quantity wanted is a pint, about 2 cups.
- Canned macedoineThe tinned version the author allows is now uncommon under that name in English-speaking shops, though canned macédoine de légumes is still sold elsewhere. Frozen mixed vegetables, cooked briefly and cooled, are the closest equivalent; drain them very thoroughly or the dressing will slide off and pool.
- French dressingIn this period French dressing means oil, vinegar, salt and pepper whisked together, not the sweet orange bottled sauce. Four tablespoons suits the pint of vegetables the recipe assumes; dress while the vegetables are barely warm so they absorb it.
- A gillTaking the American gill of 4 fluid ounces, half a gill of milk is 1/4 cup and the gill of maple syrup is 1/2 cup. By the imperial gill of 5 fluid ounces both would be a quarter larger.
- Ounces to volumeOne ounce of honey is a rounded tablespoon; two ounces of fine dry breadcrumbs is roughly 1/2 cup; one ounce of flour is a scant 1/4 cup; half an ounce of butter is one tablespoon. "Quarter of a sound lemon" most likely means the grated zest and juice of a quarter lemon, though the recipe does not say.
- Hot oven"Hot oven" in cookery of this period generally means somewhere in the region of 400–450F; the recipe itself gives no figure. Because the moulds sit in a water bath, the water buffers the heat and the puddings set gently rather than browning.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirThe batter is mixed hard for two minutes to develop it, then the beaten whites are the only leavening. Fold them in with a few decisive strokes; if they are stirred down the puddings will be dense and will not rise in the moulds.
- Moulds and donenessSix small dariole moulds or a six-cup muffin tin work; fill them about three-quarters. Add the boiling water after the tin is in the oven if that is steadier, and check at 25 minutes — a skewer should come out clean and the tops should spring back.
- KirschSwiss kirsch is a clear cherry brandy. Any kirsch or kirschwasser will do; if it is omitted, add a tablespoon more milk.
Both entries appear to belong to the international hotel repertoire, where a French kitchen vocabulary was applied to dishes of every nationality. Macédoine is generally traced to the idea of Macedonia as a mixture of peoples, borrowed as a culinary term for a medley of neatly diced vegetables or fruits, and by the time the book was written it could be bought in tins — the author's parenthetical shortcut is a small record of how quickly canned vegetables entered professional kitchens. The pudding, labelled suédois, is one of dozens of steamed egg-white puddings that carried a national adjective more as a menu flourish than as a claim of origin; its honey, breadcrumbs and kirsch are the economical props of a hotel pastry section, and the maple syrup poured over at the table is a distinctly North American finish grafted onto a European form.