Egg Sandwich
Chop finely the whites of hard-boiled eggs; force the yolks through a potato ricer; mix yolks and whites, season with salt and pepper, and moisten with a little mayonnaise dressing. Place mixture between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread with a lettuce leaf between. Garnish with an olive.
A tea-table sandwich from the era when the sandwich was a formal course, not lunch. The original gives no quantities, so the proportions are yours to set.
- QuantitiesFigure one hard-boiled egg per two sandwiches, with about a tablespoon of mayonnaise per two eggs. Add the dressing a little at a time: the filling should hold together when pressed, not slump.
- Why the yolks and whites are handled separatelyThis is the hinge of the recipe. Ricing the yolks and knife-chopping the whites gives two distinct textures, fine and coarse, instead of the uniform paste you get from mashing everything with a fork. A fine-mesh sieve pressed with a spoon does the same job as a potato ricer.
- Hard-boiled eggsTwelve minutes at a bare simmer, then straight into cold water, gives set yolks without the grey-green ring and makes the shells cooperate. Older eggs peel more easily than very fresh ones.
- Mayonnaise dressingIn 1909 this meant a homemade emulsion of raw yolk, oil, and vinegar or lemon. Commercial jarred mayonnaise is made with pasteurized egg and works here; if you make your own for a sandwich that will sit out on a tea tray, use pasteurized eggs.
- The bread"Thin slices" suggests a close-crumbed white sandwich loaf, cut thin (about a quarter-inch works), and the butter is structural rather than flavoring: a thin skim on each face keeps the dressing and the lettuce from wetting the bread. Trimming the crusts and cutting into fingers or triangles is in keeping with the period, though this recipe does not call for it.
- LettuceA crisp leaf, iceberg or the heart of a romaine, patted dry. Anything soft will wilt into the filling within the hour.
- Holding and servingBest assembled within an hour or two of serving and kept covered with a damp cloth in the refrigerator. Egg and mayonnaise should not sit at room temperature for more than about two hours.
- The olive garnishThe recipe specifies only "an olive"; a green one, halved and set on the plate or pinned to the sandwich with a cocktail pick, suits it. It is decoration, not filling.
Egg sandwiches like this one belong to the American tea-and-luncheon sandwich boom of the 1890s and 1900s, when a fashion for ladies' luncheons helped produce whole books on nothing else. Eva Greene Fuller's The Up-to-Date Sandwich Book, published in Chicago in 1909, is one of the best known of them, and it is organized by filling rather than by occasion, which is why this recipe sits in a run of egg variations. What separates the period style from a modern egg-salad sandwich is the restraint: no mustard, no onion, no relish, no paprika, just egg, salt, pepper, and enough mayonnaise to bind, with the garnish carrying the visual interest. The instruction to rice the yolks reflects a household in which a potato ricer was common equipment, and the olive reflects the era's enthusiasm for Spanish olives.