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Tomato Chicken Mayonnaise
Choose medium-sized, smooth-skinned tomatoes of equal size. Wipe them with a soft damp cloth; cut out a out a round piece from the top of each, and dig out the end and pulp with a silver spoon. When ready fill with some finely chopped chicken which has been seasoned and mixed with mayonnaise dressing.
A cold stuffed-tomato salad filed under sandwiches, which tells you how loosely that word was used in 1900. The original assumes you already have cooked chicken and a bowl of mayonnaise on hand.
- Silver spoonProbably not decorative snobbery: period writers commonly warned that steel utensils discoloured acidic fruit and could leave a metallic taste, which is the likely reason silver was specified. Any stainless or plastic spoon does the job now, and a serrated grapefruit spoon is faster.
- Drain the shellsThe hinge of the dish. Salt the hollowed tomatoes lightly, invert them on a rack or paper towel for 20 to 30 minutes, then fill. Skip this and the mayonnaise thins into pink liquid within minutes of serving.
- QuantityNo amounts are given. Reckon roughly 1/3 cup of chopped chicken per medium tomato, bound with 1 to 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise -- enough to coat, not to pool. Six tomatoes take something in the region of three-quarters of a pound of cooked meat.
- SeasoningThe recipe says only "seasoned," leaving it to the cook; salt and pepper are the safe assumption, and a little lemon juice is a reasonable addition. Chopped celery, capers, or tarragon all sit well here and add the crunch that poached chicken lacks.
- The chickenThe recipe assumes cooked chicken is already on hand, such as the remains of a boiled or roasted fowl. Poached breast works, but thigh meat has more flavor; chop it by hand to a coarse dice rather than shredding, so the filling holds its shape.
- MayonnaiseThe dressing called for would have been made fresh from raw yolks. Commercial mayonnaise, made with pasteurized egg, is the practical substitute here.
- Serving and holdingServe on a lettuce leaf, one tomato per person, as a first course or light lunch. Fill no more than an hour ahead and keep refrigerated; chicken in mayonnaise should not sit at room temperature.
Stuffed tomatoes appear all through American cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s, part of a broader vogue for cold "made dishes" served on lettuce with mayonnaise -- the same impulse that produced chicken salad, Waldorf salad, and the aspic-lined luncheon menu. Placing it under "Sandwiches" seems, on the evidence of this book, to reflect a usage in which the heading covered light, hand-served luncheon and tea food generally rather than bread with a filling. The insistence on tomatoes of equal size is a clue to how the dish was meant to reach the table: on a platter, matched, as a set piece.