Nut Salad
Chop fine one cupful of English walnut meats, mix twice as much shredded lettuce, heap on large leaves and pour over a French dressing.
A three-line salad that depends entirely on the quality of the nuts and the sharpness of the dressing. The proportions are worth noting: two parts lettuce to one part walnuts is a nut-forward salad by modern standards.
- "English walnuts"The ordinary walnut sold everywhere today (Juglans regia), so named in older American books to distinguish it from the native black walnut, which is far stronger and more resinous. Use plain shelled walnut halves.
- Toast themThe single change that improves this most. Eight to ten minutes at 350F, spread on a sheet pan, until they smell nutty; cool completely before chopping, or they will wilt the lettuce.
- Chop fine, not to a pasteA quarter-inch dice keeps texture. Walnuts ground too far release oil and turn the salad muddy and grey.
- French dressingIn a book of this date this generally means a simple vinaigrette, roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar with salt and pepper, mixed just before use; some period versions add a little mustard or paprika, but none is the sweet orange bottled product later sold under the name.
- Shredded lettuceIceberg or a firm romaine heart holds up; loose-leaf types collapse under the dressing within minutes. Shred it cold and dry, and use the outer leaves as the cups the salad is heaped into.
- Dress at the last momentNuts absorb dressing quickly and go soft. Combine, dress and serve in one motion.
- YieldOne cup of nuts and two of lettuce makes roughly three or four small side salads, one per large leaf.
Nut salads were popular in American cookbooks in the decades either side of 1900, a period when improved shipping and expanding California orchards were making shelled walnuts and almonds more widely available in the East. Salad itself was still a somewhat genteel novelty in the ordinary household, and the fashion was for something arranged rather than tossed: hence the instruction to heap the mixture on a large leaf, which turns a bowl of greens into a composed course fit for a luncheon table. Cookbooks of the period print many variations on the theme, adding celery, apple, grapes or a boiled dressing.