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Watercress and Egg Sandwich
Chop cress and moisten with French dressing.
Press the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs through a colander and add to the mixture. Place between thin Slices of lightly buttered white bread.
Three lines of text that assume a great deal of unwritten knowledge. The two things worth fixing are the dressing and the moisture control.
- French dressing meant vinaigretteIn a book of this vintage French dressing is oil, vinegar, salt and pepper beaten together, the oil generally two to three times the vinegar — not the sweet, tomato-based bottled dressing that later took the name in America. Use a plain vinaigrette.
- Quantities are left to youThe recipe specifies only three yolks. As a starting point, three yolks will take roughly a cup of chopped cress, packed — about one bunch, stems trimmed — enough for a few rounds cut into fingers or triangles.
- Dry the cress firstWatercress holds an astonishing amount of rinse water in its leaf axils. Spin or towel it thoroughly dry before chopping, then dress it lightly; wet cress plus vinaigrette turns the bread to paste within minutes.
- Colander means sievePushing yolks through a colander gives a coarse crumb that binds the dressing. A fine-mesh sieve or a box grater does the same job faster, and a fork mashing is perfectly adequate.
- The whites are not wastedOnly the yolks go in. Chop the whites into a salad or keep them for another use.
- Butter is structuralThe recipe says lightly buttered, but take the butter to the very edges and have it soft rather than melted; the film of fat helps keep the dressing off the crumb.
- Assemble lateMake the filling ahead if you like, but fill and cut no more than half an hour before serving, and keep the sandwiches under a damp cloth in the refrigerator. Cress bruises and darkens quickly once dressed.
- Season at the endYolks mute salt considerably. Taste the mixture after the cress goes in and correct with salt and a good deal of black pepper, which is what makes this filling taste of something.
Watercress and egg is among the enduring pairings in the English tea-sandwich repertoire, and it survives because the peppery bite of Nasturtium officinale is one of the few things sharp enough to carry plain hard-boiled yolk. Cress was grown commercially in beds along the chalk streams of Hampshire and Kent from the early nineteenth century, arrived in cities by early-morning train, and was cheap enough to be hawked in the streets by the bunch — one of the very few fresh green things available to poor households. By the time Eva Greene Fuller collected these formulas in The Up-to-Date Sandwich Book (1909), the sandwich had moved up several social floors: thin white bread with the crusts off, a French dressing rather than salt alone, and a place on the afternoon tea tray.