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Cucumber Salad (Saucepan put one teaspoonful)
In a saucepan put one teaspoonful of pepper corns, one teaspoonful of salt, one very small blade of mace and one-half of a bay leaf; add three cupfuls of freshly boiled water, cover and let steep for fifteen minutes, add one box of gelatine which has been soaked in one cupful of water; when dissolved, strain, add one cupful of strong tarragon vinegar and color a pretty green with color paste; wet twenty small timbale molds in cold water, drain and pour in jelly to the depth of a quarter of an inch. Set away until firm, then in the bottom of each mold put a round, thin slice of cucumber and arrange strips around the sides; fill the centers with tiny diced cucumbers and carefully pour in enough liquid jelly to fill the molds even full. Put away until firm, turn out on lettuce leaves and garnish with mayonnaise. This will serve a party of twenty.
A moulded aspic salad from the era when a cold table meant jelly. Nothing here is difficult, but the gelatine quantity and the moulds both need translating.
- A box of gelatineAround 1900 a box of granulated gelatine was usually reckoned at about 1 ounce, roughly four modern 1/4-ounce envelopes, though box sizes varied between brands. That is at least the right order of magnitude for the five cups of total liquid here (three of infusion, one of soaking water, one of vinegar) if the jellies are to unmould cleanly and hold cucumber suspended in them.
- Bloom the gelatine firstThe soaking in a cupful of cold water is not optional padding — powdered gelatine must hydrate cold before it meets hot liquid, or it clumps and never fully dissolves. Add the bloomed mass to the hot spiced water off the boil; gelatine held at a rolling boil loses setting strength.
- Build in layers, and keep the rest liquidThe hinge of the recipe is temperature control on the second filling. Set the quarter-inch base firm, arrange the cucumber, then pour jelly that is cool but still fluid — if it is hot it melts the base and the cucumber slides; if it has begun to set it will not seal around the dice.
- Timbale mouldsThese are small straight-sided moulds of about 2 to 3 fluid ounces. Twenty of them take roughly the five cups the recipe produces. Individual silicone moulds, small ramekins or a muffin tin all work; dipping the outside in warm water for a few seconds releases the set jelly.
- Color pastePeriod colouring pastes were of uncertain composition and some green shades of the day were copper- or coal-tar-based. Use modern gel food colouring, and a very small amount — the instruction is "a pretty green," not emerald.
- Mace and tarragon vinegarA blade of mace is a piece of the dried aril of nutmeg; about 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg is a rough stand-in, though the flavour is coarser. Tarragon vinegar is still sold, and is worth seeking out here since it carries most of the character of the jelly.
- Cucumber waterCut the diced and sliced cucumber ahead, salt it lightly and drain it on a towel before it goes into the moulds. Cucumber sheds a good deal of liquid, which will thin the jelly at the interface and cause weeping once turned out.
- Timing and yieldServes twenty as a garnish salad, one mould each. Allow at least three hours' chilling in total, and assemble the day before if you can — the jellies unmould much more cleanly after a full night.
Moulded savoury jellies were the showpiece of the American cold table between roughly 1880 and 1930, and their spread owes a great deal to the arrival of reliable granulated gelatine sold by the box, which replaced the long business of boiling calves' feet for stock jelly. Once a cook could measure setting power out of a packet, aspics moved from the professional kitchen into ordinary households, and cookbooks of this period fill their salad chapters with them. The individual timbale mould, turned out on a lettuce leaf with a spoonful of mayonnaise, was one of the formats often used for luncheon and reception service — decorative, portioned in advance, and made entirely the day before. Tarragon vinegar and a blade of mace belong to the same dressing vocabulary.