Mayfair Salad Dressing

Saint Louis magazine recently published an article by St. Louis Food guru, Helen Fletcher, about the legendary Mayfair Salad and Dressing, the creation of the original Mayfair Hotel in St. Louis. It was one of the original recipes from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair Exhibition.

The hotel used to sell the dressing by the pint. I well remember my mother, and members of her gourmet group, making the trek to the city in order to stock up. When the recipe was finally published, my mother started making her own. In my estimation, this is one of the best salad dressings around. I tend to vary slightly from the original because I am not a particular fan of anchovies. To me, replacing them with a small amount of anchovy paste makes this dressing absolute perfection.

 The recipe for both my version of the dressing and salad are below. A Mayfair Salad is truly delicious and makes a wonderful light meal. My favorite way to enjoy the dressing, however, is tossed with a bowl of freshly torn, crisp leaves of Romaine lettuce, wedges of hard-boiled egg, and about 2 tablespoons of Italian breadcrumbs. Delicious!

 Mayfair Salad Dressing

  ½ c. coarsely chopped celery

1 small clove garlic

1 small coarsely chopped Melissa’s shallot

½ - 1 t. anchovy paste

2 T. Dijon mustard

½ t. freshly ground black pepper

1 T. fresh lemon juice

¾ c. Duke’s mayonnaise

 Place all ingredients into a mini food processor or mini ninja blender. Using the processor gives some texture, using the blender will make it perfectly smooth. It’s your choice. Process to purée. Refrigerate for one hour before using. This makes a little bit less than 2 cups; the recipe can be doubled.

Original Mayfair Salad

 Romaine lettuce

Ham, julienne

Swiss Cheese, julienne

Croutons

Mayfair Dressing

 There are no amounts. Use as much or little as desired. 

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End of Summer, Touch of Fall Salad

Those of you who live in the heartland like I do are probably experiencing the same phenomenal weather. I cannot remember a better month of August than the one we had this year. To have highs in the upper 70s or low 80s, and nighttime lows dipping into the 50s has me thinking about fall. While I am thinking about fall, I'm not entirely ready to give up summer. This salad reflects those conflicted feelings. I love the fresh blueberries of summer, and yet I always welcome the tastes of fall like pumpkin, cranberries, warm spices, and nuts. In thinking about these feelings, I came up with a salad that captures it all. This is an easy one to throw together, you can use your favorite vinaigrette or the recipe that I have here, and serve it as a side salad, or two big luncheon salads. Whatever you do, you're going to love it.

End of Summer, Touch of Fall Salad

1 head Romaine lettuce
1 3-ounce package Melissa’s dried cranberries
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1/3 cup toffee walnuts*
1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (can use feta or cojita)

Tear lettuce into bite-size pieces. Place it and remaining ingredients into a large bowl. Toss all ingredients together and top with your favorite vinaigrette. This makes four small side salads.

*To make toffee walnuts (or any nut for that matter), in a 9-inch skillet, melt 2 tablespoons granulated sugar over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. When sugar becomes liquid, add nuts, stirring constantly until well coated. Do not allow sugar to burn. When nuts are coated, turn out onto a cold plate. Break apart.

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THE COBB SALAD

The Cobb salad (Not to be confused with "The Big Salad"* the 88th episode (2nd episode; 6th season) of Seinfeld that originally aired on September 29, 1994.), invented in the 1930's at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant is named for the restaurant's owner, Robert Howard Cobb.  A main-dish salad, its major components are chopped salad greens, tomato, crispy bacon, chicken breast, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, chives, and Roquefort cheese.  Variations of the salad are served in restaurants worldwide (I personally add large-dice cucumber), but to me if there is no avocado, then it's not a Cobb Salad.  I think the Cobb Salad is one of the prettiest to serve.  One of the things I particularly like about it is the artistry involved in putting it together.  Here I've done it rather simply so you can see each ingredient, but in the past I've placed them in circles, swirls, and wedges.  We used Bamboo flatware to eat this one, which added to the fun!

All of the lettuce is from my AEROGARDEN. I used three varieties here: red leaf, romaine, and butter crunch.

It's week THREE! I had to move the Aerogarden from the guest room into my studio in order to be able to raise the light two notches to accommodate the lettuce's rapid growth this past week. (There will be a future blog post about this.)

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*Elaine must find a special mechanical pencil, the Rolamech 1000, for her boss, Mr. Pitt (Ian Abercrombie) and soon finds herself dealing with the romantic advances of the stationery store clerk (Jerry Levine). The clerk asks for her telephone number to call her when he receives the pencil but Elaine gives him Jerry's number instead. At Elaine's request, George purchases a "big salad" for her from Monk's. But his girlfriend Julie (Michelle Forbes) appears to take credit for the purchase when she hands Elaine the salad in Jerry's apartment. George is displeased over the fact that Elaine thanked Julie for buying the salad, and casually mentions to Elaine that he was responsible for the purchase. George's revelation eventually leads to a rift between him and Julie when the truth comes out, but she simply justifies her actions by saying, "George, all I did was hand someone a bag." Semi-humiliated, George vows never to buy Elaine lunch ever again. Jerry learns that his current girlfriend, Margaret (Marita Geraghty), formerly dated Newman, who ended the relationship. Jerry cannot comprehend why Newman dumped someone so clearly "out of his league" in terms of beauty, so he attempts to find any fault in his girlfriend. Kramer plays golf with an ex-Major League Baseball player, who washes his ball on the second shot (not on the green), breaking the rules and causing an altercation with Kramer.The man is later suspected in the murder of a dry cleaner, and Kramer helps the man to see his pet fish by driving in his white Ford Bronco in a low speed chase down the New Jersey Turnpike.  (from Wikipedia)