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French Savory Sandwiches
Make a paste as for eclairs, bake in small pieces, and when light split with a knife and fill with a mixture of equal parts mayonnaise dressing and chopped game or chicken. These are very delicate.
A one-line recipe that assumes you already know how to make choux paste and bake it, which most cookbooks of the period did. The details it leaves out are the ones worth filling in.
- "Paste as for eclairs"This is pâte à choux: water and butter brought to a boil, flour beaten in off the heat until the mass leaves the pan, then eggs worked in one at a time. A workable ratio is 1 cup water, 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup flour, 4 eggs, with a pinch of salt.
- Oven heatChoux needs a hot start and a drier finish. Bake at 425F for about 10 minutes to get the steam lift, then drop to 350F for another 15 to 20 minutes until the puffs are deep gold and light in the hand.
- "Small pieces"For sandwiches these should be no bigger than a walnut, piped or dropped in teaspoon-sized mounds. The above quantity of paste gives roughly 40 to 50 puffs.
- Split them warm, then dry themThe hinge of the whole thing. Slit each puff as soon as it comes out so the trapped steam escapes, and return them to a turned-off oven for a few minutes. A damp interior turns to paste the moment the filling goes in.
- Equal parts is too much dressingMayonnaise and meat in equal measure gives a filling that runs. Two or three parts finely chopped chicken or game to one part mayonnaise binds properly and still tastes of the meat.
- Game'game' here would most likely mean a cold roast bird such as pheasant, partridge or grouse, though the recipe specifies nothing beyond 'game or chicken'. Any cooked dark poultry works; the meat should be cooked before it is chopped.
- Fill at the last momentFilled puffs soften within an hour. Bake and split in the morning, keep the shells in a dry place, and fill shortly before serving.
- Raw egg in the dressingHomemade mayonnaise is uncooked egg yolk. Use pasteurised eggs, or a good commercial mayonnaise, if serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised.
Small choux shells filled with a savory mixture were a familiar item of turn-of-the-century entertaining, and similar things appear under names such as petits choux or cheese puffs; the word sandwich appears to have been used loosely at the time for a small filled item handed round with tea or at a reception. Cold mayonnaise-bound dishes were commonly grouped with salads rather than with meats. Chopped game or chicken of this kind would in many households have come from the remains of a roast bird.