Easter Sandwich
Between thin slices of lightly buttered white. bread, place a crisp lettuce leaf that has been dipped in mayonnaise dressing. On this place round slices of cold hard-boiled egg. Dust with pepper and salt. Cut sandwiches in squares and tie with lavender baby ribbon.
A straightforward egg-and-lettuce sandwich whose only real trick is keeping the layers dry enough that the bread survives being tied up with ribbon.
- Hard-boiled eggsTwelve minutes at a bare simmer, then straight into cold water, gives set yolks without the grey ring. Slice with an egg slicer or a thin wet knife so the rounds stay whole.
- Mayonnaise dressingIn books of this kind the term usually meant a dressing made at home, thinner and sharper than jarred mayonnaise, though it sometimes covered a cooked salad dressing rather than a cold emulsion. Loosening commercial mayonnaise with a little lemon juice or cream brings it closer, and makes it easier to coat a lettuce leaf without clumping.
- Dipping the lettuceDipping rather than spreading leaves the dressed leaf acting as the moisture barrier. Shake off the excess; a dripping leaf will soak through thin bread.
- White breadUse a fine-crumbed sandwich loaf, sliced thin; the recipe does not call for trimming the crusts, though these sandwiches are often served trimmed. Bakery bread with large holes will tear when you cut squares and press the ribbon down.
- Cutting and tyingChill the assembled sandwiches briefly under a damp towel before cutting; they slice cleanly and hold their shape. Narrow ribbon is fine as decoration, but tie it loosely and expect people to untie it before eating.
- Yield and timingTwo eggs and four slices of bread give roughly eight small squares. Assemble no more than an hour or two ahead and keep refrigerated, as egg and mayonnaise should not sit out at room temperature.
Sandwich books proliferated in the United States between about 1900 and 1920, a period in which the sandwich is often said to have moved from railway-station fare to the centrepiece of the ladies' luncheon, the card party and the church social. Recipes from that world are less about flavour than about presentation: cut in squares, diamonds or rounds, trimmed of crust, and finished with a ribbon, a paper frill or a garnish keyed to the occasion. That is all that makes this an Easter sandwich, the egg being the season's obvious emblem and lavender ribbon its polite spring colour. Hard-boiled egg with dressed lettuce on buttered white bread was a familiar filling of the period, cheap and reliably firm enough to be handled, and combinations of this kind tended to reappear under whatever festive name the occasion called for.