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Nasturtium Sandwiches
Butter the bread and then lay on one of the slices a medium-sized nasturtium leaf, spreading over it a layer of mayonnaise dressing. Fold the slices of bread together, cut out the sandwich in the shape of the leaf, and let the stem be visible. Only the least bit of mayonnaise should be used, as the nasturtium has a great deal of flavor of its own. This is one of the daintiest of sandwiches and is a real relish.
A two-ingredient sandwich that lives or dies on the quality of the leaf. Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) leaves are genuinely peppery, closer to watercress than to lettuce, and the recipe is right that mayonnaise should be barely present.
- Pick young leavesChoose leaves about 2 inches across, from new growth. Older, larger leaves turn tough and aggressively hot, and the flavor tips from peppery to bitter.
- Only unsprayed plantsNasturtiums are usually grown as ornamentals, so garden-center plants and cut flowers may carry insecticide or systemic treatments not cleared for food. Use leaves from your own untreated plants or from a grower selling them as edible.
- Wash and dry thoroughlyNasturtium leaves cup water and hide aphids, which are drawn to the plant. Swish in cold water, then dry completely or the mayonnaise will slide off the bread.
- The mayonnaiseA cook of this period made her own with raw yolk; commercial mayonnaise or one made with pasteurized eggs avoids the question entirely. Spread it in a film, not a layer, as the recipe insists.
- BreadUse a fine-crumbed white sandwich loaf, sliced thin. The leaf-shaped cutting only works with a tight crumb; artisan bread with open holes will tear at the stem.
- Cutting the shapeTrace one leaf on stiff paper to make a template, assemble the sandwich, then cut through both slices with a small sharp knife. The projecting stem is fragile, so leave it a little wider than life.
- Assemble lateCut sandwiches dry out at the exposed edges within about half an hour. Make them close to serving and keep them under a damp cloth on the plate.
- YieldThe original gives none. Figure one leaf and two thin slices per sandwich, and three or four per person as a tea or luncheon relish.
- The flowers tooNasturtium blossoms are equally edible and milder than the leaves. A few scattered on the platter make the leaf shape legible to anyone who does not recognize it.
Nasturtium sandwiches belong to the late-Victorian and Edwardian vogue for the "dainty" sandwich, cut small and shaped for afternoon tea and ladies' luncheons, where the point was as much visual wit as nourishment. The plant itself had long been a kitchen-garden dual-purpose crop: the leaves and flowers eaten as salad, and the green seed pods pickled as a domestic substitute for capers, a use recorded in English cookery books well before 1800. The common name is borrowed from true watercress and its relatives (Nasturtium proper) on account of the shared pungency, which comes from mustard oils in both, though the garden nasturtium is a South American plant of a different family.