Shrimp Salad
Put the prepared shrimps, fresh or canned, in a bank of broken ice until chilled. Remove the ice and water, put over the shrimps about two tablespoonfuls of French dressing to each cupful of shrimps, and place on ice until ready to serve. Arrange dainty cups of crisp lettuce leaves by placing together in the form of a cup three medium sized lettuce leaves. Place from three to five shrimps in each lettuce cup, and serve with mayonnaise dressing.
A cold assembly rather than a cooked dish, so nearly everything depends on the shrimp themselves and on keeping them properly cold.
- "Prepared shrimps"The word covers cooked, peeled and deveined shrimp, which is what you want. Boil raw shrimp in salted water two to three minutes until just opaque, then chill at once; canned shrimp should be drained and rinsed to lose the tinny brine.
- The bank of broken iceThis is the hinge. Before mechanical refrigeration, chilling of this kind meant burying the shrimp in ice and pouring off the meltwater; today the refrigerator does it without waterlogging them. If you do use an ice bath, keep the shrimp in a sealed bag so they do not absorb water and go flabby.
- French dressing, then mayonnaiseFrench dressing of the period is generally oil, vinegar, salt and pepper whisked together, commonly around three parts oil to one of vinegar, though period versions vary and some add mustard or paprika. It acts as a marinade here; the mayonnaise is the sauce at the table.
- ProportionsTwo tablespoons of dressing per cup of shrimp is about right and worth keeping. More and the shrimp sit in a puddle that thins the mayonnaise on the plate.
- Marinating timeThe recipe says only "place on ice until ready to serve." Thirty minutes to an hour is plenty; several hours in vinegar will start to firm and dull the shrimp.
- The lettuce cupsThree leaves nested together works with butterhead or the inner leaves of iceberg, both of which have the necessary curve. Romaine cups less readily. Crisp the leaves in cold water and dry them thoroughly or the mayonnaise will slide off.
- Yield and scaleThree to five shrimp per cup makes this a first course, not a main. A pound of cooked medium shrimp fills eight to ten cups; count on two cups per person if you want it to be lunch.
Shrimp salad in this form belongs to the era when household iceboxes and canned seafood arrived together, and both show in the recipe's opening line — "fresh or canned" is offered without apology. Canned shrimp, largely from the Gulf Coast packing houses that grew up in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, put a coastal ingredient on inland tables year round, and cookbooks of the period treat it as an ordinary pantry item. The lettuce cup is equally of its moment: American salad service of the period favored individual portions arranged on greens rather than a tossed bowl, and the leaf served as both plate and garnish. The pairing of a vinaigrette marinade with a mayonnaise finish was standard practice in the period's salad chapters, the first seasoning the flesh and the second dressing the dish.