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Salmagundi
1 pint (2 cups) chopped cooked veal, ham or chicken 4 hard-cooked eggs 1/2 pint (I cup) chopped olives or pickles Few sprigs parsley I lemon I/2 pint (I cup) olive oil 1 teaspoonful salt 1 teaspoonful dry mustard Divide the yolks from the whites of the eggs and rub them through a sieve. Put a layer of the meat on a platter, then a layer of whites of eggs, then a layer of the olives, a layer of the yolks of eggs, another layer of meat and the parsley on the top.
Beat up the olive oil with the strained juice of the lemon, season with the salt and mustard and serve with the salmagundi.
Salmagundi probably never appears on a modern ménu, although it could describe a dish of engaging qualities. What is salmagundi? The dictionary says it was originally a dish consisting of chopped cooked meat, eggs, anchovies, onions, oil, etc. And in the second definition it is set forth that the dish may be a mixture of various ingredients; an olio or a medley; a hotch-potch; a miscellany. Etymologists derive the word from the Italian salame, meaning "salt meat," and conditti, derived from the Latin conditus, meaning "seasoned."
It is generally conceded that the dish has an Italian origin, and that is not surprising, for Italy may be regarded as the cradle of good cookery.
France soon followed the lead of Italy in culinary matters, and in spite of the conservatism of English cooks many innovations were made in their cookery. Thus "salmagundi" was one of the dishes adopted from France.
It seems to be composed of ingredients which have no gastronomic affinity, and yet the dish, when evolved (by inspiration, so to speak), is worth the approval of our best diners. The dish gives large scope for inventiveness. Minced chicken, veal or other insipid meat may form the foundation, while the seasonings or garnishings
A cold composed salad of leftover roast meat, built in layers and dressed at the table. Nothing here is difficult; the work is in the knife and the arrangement.
- The dressing is the hingeOne cup of oil to the juice of a single lemon is roughly 4:1 and will taste flat and greasy. Use the juice of two to three lemons, or start with 1/2 cup oil and add more only if it tastes sharp; whisk the mustard and salt into the juice first so the powder dissolves and helps the emulsion hold.
- MeasuresThe recipe helpfully glosses its own pints: a pint is 2 cups, a half pint 1 cup. It does not say whether its teaspoonfuls are level or rounded, so taste rather than dumping in a full teaspoon of salt at once.
- Sieving the yolksRubbing hard-cooked yolks through a sieve gives the fine, snow-like crumb the layers depend on. A fine-mesh strainer and the back of a spoon does it; a box grater on the fine side is faster and close enough.
- Chop the whites separatelyWhites should be diced small rather than sieved, or they turn to rubbery paste. Keep them dry so the yolk layer above stays loose.
- Olives or picklesBoth are salty enough to season the whole dish. Rinse and pat dry chopped olives, and drain pickles well, or the platter weeps liquid under the meat.
- The meatCooked veal, ham or chicken, chopped by hand rather than pulsed in a processor — a food processor gives paste, and the dish wants distinct texture. Leftover roast or poached chicken breast is the closest modern equivalent to the "insipid meat" the writer recommends as a base.
- Assembly and holdingLayer on a shallow platter, cover and refrigerate up to a few hours; add the parsley and pour the dressing only at serving, since the acid will dull the herb and slacken the layers.
- YieldAbout 4 cups of solids, enough for four as a main-course salad or six to eight as part of a cold table.
Salmagundi was a fixture of English cold tables from the seventeenth century onward, and Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery (1747) gives a well-known version arranged in rings on a plate — though Glasse's rings and small dishes are some distance from the layered presentation here. The etymology the author repeats, from Italian salame and Latin conditus, is one traditional guess; the word is more usually traced to French salmigondis, of uncertain origin, and the claimed Italian pedigree should be read as period opinion rather than established fact. By the time this book appeared the word had long since escaped the kitchen to mean any jumble — Washington Irving and friends published a satirical magazine called Salmagundi in 1807 — which is why the writer has to stop and explain what the dish once was before giving instructions for making it.