HFF 3.12: Picnic

The Challenge: Picnic. Make a food for travel or eating outside.

The Recipe: Chicken Salad from the Ladies' Indispensable Assistant. Beeton's infamous picnic menu for 40 persons calls for multiple lettuces and baskets of salad after all...

The Date/Year and Region: 1852, New York

How Did You Make It:  Picked and washed lettuce (heritage rouge de l'hiver and oakleaf varieties, I think), then chopped it small and arranged it on the platter. Cut two half-breasts of chicken fine and fried them, flavoring with salt and pepper. Boiled four eggs. Arranged the chicken on the lettuce. Sliced the eggs, removed the yolks, and arranged the whites around the chicken. Rubbed egg yokes through a sieve, then stirred in ~2 tsp salt, 4 tsp mustard, 4 Tbsp oil, and ~6 oz apple cider vinegar. Poured this dressing over the chicken. 

The receipt called for celery, but allowed lettuce as a substitute. 

Time to Complete: Not sure, but it didn't seem very long.

Total Cost: $3.50 for chicken (on sale), everything else was on hand or in the garden

How Successful Was It?: I liked it, even though I ended up making too much dressing for the amount of chicken and lettuce. The mustard flavor is dominant in the dressing, but the egg and vinegar add some complexity to it. I probably should have added more vinegar (1 wineglass full per egg seems to be about 2 oz minimum), but I thought the acidity of the dressing was pretty good (though it was a touch thick).

Despite being similar to Beeton's receipt, I liked how the dressing made this one taste different. It was also simpler the make, having no beetroot, cucumber, or endive to worry about. 

How Accurate Is It?: My modern shortcut was using commercial mustard for the 'prepared mustard'; I expect the chicken was meant to be left-over from another dish, but not having any, I just pan fried some with salt and pepper. It's easy to do, but I have not documented the technique to this period (roasting and boiling being the methods I see most often).

Sieving egg yolks.

Salad. That is a dressing of egg yolk and mustard,
not melted cheese.