Creole Sandwich
One cupful of cold boiled chicken chopped fine, two tablespoonfuls of green pepper that has been parboiled and chopped fine. Add a dash of salt, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; moisten with a little mayonnaise dressing and place between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread. Garnish with an olive.
A straightforward chicken salad filling from the era when sandwiches were built for tea tables rather than lunchboxes. Almost nothing here needs translating, but a few habits of 1900 are worth adjusting.
- YieldOne cupful of chopped chicken makes roughly three to four sandwiches cut in the thin style the recipe calls for, or two substantial ones. A single poached breast, about 6 oz cooked, gives you roughly the cup.
- Parboiling the pepperTwo minutes in boiling water then straight into cold water is enough. The point is to take the raw edge off and soften the skin, not to cook the pepper through; longer and it turns grey and weeps into the mayonnaise.
- "Green pepper"In American books of this date this is the ordinary unripe bell pepper, not a chilli. If you want the heat the name Creole suggests, a little cayenne is closer to period practice than substituting a hot pepper.
- Cold boiled chickenPoached, not roasted — the flavour is meant to be mild and the texture moist. Chop by hand to a coarse mince; a food processor turns it to paste, which is why these fillings so often disappoint when made quickly.
- Mayonnaise"Moisten" is the operative word. The filling should hold together when pressed, not slump. If you make mayonnaise from scratch with raw yolks, keep the sandwiches refrigerated and eat them the same day.
- The breadThin slices of a fine-crumbed white loaf, buttered to the edges. The butter is structural as much as anything — it seals the crumb so the dressing does not soak through before serving.
- The oliveThe recipe says only to garnish with an olive, without specifying type or placement; it reads as decoration rather than seasoning.
"Creole" in turn-of-the-century American cookbooks was applied loosely to almost anything containing green pepper, tomato or a hint of cayenne, and often signalled little more than the vague southern glamour that New Orleans cooking carried in the national imagination. Little here would be recognised in a Louisiana kitchen: it is a standard chopped-chicken-and-mayonnaise filling with parboiled pepper stirred through, given a regional name for the menu card. Sandwich recipes were plentiful in this period in part because the afternoon tea and the ladies' luncheon created steady demand for small, tidy, hand-held food. A filling like this one is a plausible use for the cold remains of a boiled fowl, which may be why the chicken is specified cold and boiled rather than cooked to order.