Roast or boiled chickens
2 heads celery, inner & lower (white) parts only
8 egg yolks, hard-boiled
3/4 to 1 teaspoon salt
3/4 to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, ground
1/4 c. mustard, preferably brown or Dijon style
1/2 c. vinegar
3/4 c. olive oil
The fowls for this purpose should be young and fine. You may either boil or roast them. They must be quite cold. Having removed all the skin and fat, and disjointed the fowls, cut the meat from the bones into very spall pieces, not exceeding an inch. Wash and split two large fine heads of celery, and cut thewhite part into pieces also about an inch long; and having mixed the chicken and celery together, put them into a deep china dish, cover it and set it away.
It is best not to prepare the dressing till just before the salad is to be eaten, that it may be as fresh as possible. Have ready the yolks of eight hard-boiled eggs. Put them into a flat dish, and mash them to a paste with the back of a wooden spoon. Add to the egg a small tea-spoonful of fine salt, the same quantity of cayenne pepper, half a gill of made mustard, a jill or a wine-glass and a half of vinegar, and rather more than two wine-glasses of sweet oil. Mix all these ingredients thoroughly; stirring them a long time till they are quite smooth.
The dressing should not be put on till a few minutes before the salad is sent in; as by lying in it the chicken and celery will become tough and hard. After you pour it on, mix the whole well together with a silver fork.
chicken salad should be accompanied with plates of bread and butter, and a plate of biscuits. It is a supper dish, and is brought in with terrapin, oysters, &c.
Cold turkey is excellent prepared as above.
An inferior salad may be made with cold fillet of veal, instead of chickens.
Cold boiled lobster is very fine cut up and drest in this manner, only substituting for celery, lettuce cut up and mixed with the lobster.
From Miss Leslie’s Directions for Cookery, Eliza Leslie, Philadelphia, 1851
Comments: One of the challenges of dealing with historic recipes is the wide variety of terms used to denote measurements in the days before such things were standardized. A “jill” (sometimes seen spelled “gill”) is about 4 ounces, or about half a modern measuring cup. “Teaspoon” and “tablespoon” meant the literal utensils, which like those in your kitchen drawer may be of a variety of sizes. The important thing is the proportion, which is 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons. Use modern ones and you won’t be far off here.
As to the importance of the whiteness of the celery, this may be an esthetic issue as much as it is one of taste or texture. White is a symbol of purity and cleanliness, a notion which seems to transfer into food sometimes. In addition there may be a class issue involved: discarding the majority of the celery, simply because it is a brighter green, would be an indulgence only the wealthier would bother with. Miss Leslie is normally a very practical cook as best as we can tell, not obsessed with impressing Mrs. La-Te-Dah, so perhaps we are being overly suspicious. Make it with whatever parts and amounts of celery seems fitting to you.
Oh, and the “mix with a silver fork” isn’t an example of snobbery either. Eating and cooking utensils of the time were often made of what are today considered “base” metals like pewter and Brittania ware, which could include metals considered unsafe today. Some of metals would react badly with eggs and cause them to become discolored, therefore the preference for non-reactive silver. Or perhaps Miss Leslie was afraid of vampires. Who knows.
