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Apple Salad (Large round red apples)
Large, round, red apples are selected, care being taken to choose those without flaws. The top of each is cut off and the apples inside scooped out with a sharp knife; the shell, thin and strong as possible, is set aside; the scooped out inside is cut in small pieces, mixed with celery likewise cut up, and the whole dressed with mayonnaise. Into the shell, set on lettuce leaves upon an individual plate, the composition is now put, a little dressing being spread over the top and four Spanish peppers added. Each guest has one of these apples set before him.
A stuffed-apple salad from the era when fruit and vegetable shells were the fashionable way to serve a first course. Nothing here needs cooking; the only real difficulty is keeping the cut apple pale.
- The hinge: browningCut apple begins oxidizing within minutes, and the recipe gives no acid. Toss the diced flesh and brush the inside of each shell with lemon juice as you work, or drop the pieces into lightly acidulated water and drain well before dressing.
- Choosing the applesThe instruction is for large, round, unblemished red apples, meaning something that will sit upright and hold its shape. Rome Beauty, Braeburn, Jonathan or a big Gala all work; avoid mealy varieties and anything as soft as a McIntosh, which collapses when hollowed.
- HollowingCut the top off about a third of the way down and hollow with a melon baller or a grapefruit spoon rather than a knife, leaving a shell roughly a quarter-inch thick. Cut out and discard the core and seeds from the scooped flesh.
- ProportionsThe original gives none. Roughly equal volumes of diced apple and diced celery works well, with just enough mayonnaise to coat -- about two tablespoons per apple as a starting point.
- "Spanish peppers"Most likely sweet red peppers of the pimiento type, often sold jarred or canned; jarred pimientos or piquillo peppers are the usual modern stand-in. The recipe calls for four, apparently whole and small; four strips arranged on top is a reasonable substitute if only large jarred peppers are to hand.
- MayonnaiseHousehold mayonnaise of the period was made fresh with raw yolks. Commercial mayonnaise, made with pasteurized egg, is what most cooks will reach for and is the safer choice for a dish that sits at the table.
- Timing and yieldOne apple per guest. Assemble no more than an hour ahead and refrigerate; the celery gives up water and the shell softens if it stands longer.
The apple-celery-mayonnaise combination is generally traced to the Waldorf salad, credited by tradition to Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel at New York's Waldorf Hotel in the 1890s; walnuts were a later addition, and the earliest versions were just apple, celery and mayonnaise, exactly as here. What this version adds is the period's enthusiasm for serving food inside its own hollowed shell -- tomatoes, green peppers, oranges and apples were all pressed into service as edible cups in turn-of-the-century salad chapters, at a time when salads were moving from an afterthought to a course with its own ambitions. The individual plate and the phrase "each guest has one of these apples set before him" belong to the same shift: service à la russe, with composed portions rather than a shared bowl, had become the standard for a formal American table.