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Mock Oyster Sandwich
Boil salsify until tender, work smooth with a little sweet cream, season with salt, cayenne, and a dash of anchovy sauce; place between thin slices of lightly buttered white bread.
A vegetable paste that trades on salsify's faint oyster flavor. The whole dish depends on cooking the root fully and mashing it while hot, so keep the amounts loose and taste as you go.
- SalsifySold as salsify or oyster plant, sometimes as scorzonera (the black-skinned relative, which works the same way). Two or three roots make enough filling for four sandwiches. Peel and drop into acidulated water at once, as the cut flesh browns within minutes.
- Boil until genuinely tenderSalsify that is merely fork-tender still mashes into strings. Cut the peeled roots into 1-inch lengths and simmer in salted water 20-30 minutes, until a piece collapses under the back of a spoon. Undercooked salsify is the usual reason this filling turns out fibrous.
- Sweet creamMeans unsoured, unsweetened cream, not a sweetened product. Heavy cream is the right substitute; add it a spoonful at a time so the paste stays thick enough to hold between bread.
- Anchovy sauceThe period product was a thin, bottled sauce rather than a modern thick anchovy paste; bottled anchovy essence was a related but stronger preparation. A quarter-teaspoon of anchovy paste thinned with a little of the cooking water, or a little Worcestershire, gives a comparable salty push.
- CayenneA dash means a pinch, on the order of 1/8 teaspoon for this quantity. Its job is heat behind the flavor rather than pepper you can taste outright.
- AssemblyMash while hot, then cool before spreading, or the butter melts into the bread and the sandwich goes damp. Thin white bread, crusts trimmed, cut into fingers or triangles; the filling holds a few hours covered in the refrigerator.
- YieldEnough for four small tea sandwiches, or eight fingers.
Salsify has often been called the oyster plant, on the strength of a mild, slightly briny sweetness that cooks thought recalled shellfish; the resemblance is often overstated, which is why recipes like this one reach for anchovy to close the gap. "Mock" dishes of this kind were a fixture of American and English household cookery, sometimes for economy and sometimes, in inland towns, because fresh oysters simply were not to be had.