Orange Salad
The top being cut off of the orange it is scooped out; what is taken from the orange is cut up fine, and to it are added very little well chopped bits of bananas, seedless raisins and brandied cherries; a very little lemon juice is poured in as these ingredients are being mixed together, and rum and sugar are poured over the mixture just before it is put into the orange shell. The cut-off top is cut into thin slices, and these are curled over the top of the now filled up orange, with red cherries set in the center.
A fruit salad served in its own shell, from the era when a salad course could be sweet and the presentation carried the dish. The instructions give no quantities, so work by proportion and by the capacity of the shell.
- Choose the orange for the shell, not the fleshA large navel with thick, firm skin holds its shape after scooping; thin-skinned juice oranges collapse. Slice off the top third rather than a thin cap, so the top can be cut into slices wide enough to curl.
- Scooping without wrecking the shellCut around the inside wall with a paring knife or grapefruit spoon and lift out the segments in sections, then trim away membrane before chopping. Level the base by slicing a thin disc off the bottom so it stands upright.
- ProportionsThe orange flesh should dominate; roughly two parts orange to one part banana, raisins and cherries combined is a workable starting point. The original calls for "very little" of the added fruit and "a very little" lemon juice, so keep the additions restrained.
- Brandied cherriesNow usually sold as cocktail or maraschino-style cherries in liqueur. The bright red cherries set in the center are probably a glacé or maraschino sort used for colour, though the recipe does not specify.
- Lemon juice goes in earlyIt is added while mixing, not at the end, because the banana browns within minutes of being cut. A teaspoon per orange is enough to keep the fruit bright without souring it.
- Rum and sugar lastSugar draws juice out of the fruit, so adding it just before filling keeps the mixture from flooding the shell. A teaspoon of sugar and two of rum per orange is a reasonable starting point; taste, since the cherry syrup already sweetens.
- Yield and servingOne filled orange per person, as a salad or light dessert course. Assemble no more than an hour ahead and keep chilled — the banana softens and the shell weeps if it stands longer.
Serving fruit in a hollowed-out shell fits the late-Victorian and Edwardian taste for dishes that arrived at table already portioned and already decorated, and may explain why this sits among the salads rather than the desserts: in American cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s the salad course had expanded well beyond greens to take in fruit, gelatines and mayonnaise-dressed combinations, and a sweet fruit salad in an orange cup was not an unusual entry. Brandied cherries were one way of keeping fruit through the winter, and oranges and bananas were reaching American cities in quantity by this date, by rail from Florida and California and by steamship from the Caribbean. The absence of measurements is common in the period's shorter entries.