A Sallet of Rocket, after Evelyn

the English salad of 1699 rebuilt from Acetaria: rocket qualified with lettuce and purslane as Evelyn instructed, under his own nine-part dressing of oil, vinegar, mustard, and a hard yolk

Origin: England

From the journey of Rocket.

John Evelyn's Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets, published in 1699 when its author was seventy-nine, is the first book in English devoted entirely to salad. It catalogues eighty-two plants with a note on the character of each, and it sets out a method for dressing them that runs to nine parts and is argued with some heat. Rocket is entry fifty-three, and Evelyn's whole note on it reads: "Rocket, Eruca Spanish; hot and dry, to be qualified with Lettuce, Purcelain, and the rest, &c." That sentence is the reason this dish is in the atlas. It is Pliny's instruction, given sixteen centuries earlier, essentially unchanged: a hot leaf must be corrected by cold ones. Evelyn was working from the same classical dietary literature, and the humoral theory behind it was by 1699 in its last decades of respectability, but the practical advice outlived the theory completely. A bowl of assorted leaves in which something peppery is balanced by something mild is exactly what the instruction produces, and it is exactly what is sold today in bags. Evelyn's dressing is his own and is worth following. He is insistent that the oil be good and the vinegar sharp, that the salt be dissolved in the vinegar before the oil is added, and that the whole be turned with a hard-boiled yolk worked to a paste. He calls his name for the person who dresses the salad the composer, and he thought most of them incompetent.

Ingredients

Sallet

100 g rocket (arugula), the sharpest available
150 g soft round or butterhead lettuce, leaves separated
80 g purslane, or lamb's lettuce if purslane is unobtainable
1 handful salad burnet, chervil, or young sorrel leaves
1 handful edible flowers: violets, borage, or nasturtium (optional)

Dressing

1 whole egg, hard-boiled, yolk only
1 tsp English mustard powder
0.5 tsp fine sea salt
2 tbsp good white wine vinegar
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, mild and sweet
1 pinch black pepper, finely ground
1 pinch orange or lemon zest, finely grated (optional)

Method

Boil the egg for nine minutes, cool it under running water, and take out the yolk. Discard or reserve the white.
Dissolve the salt and the mustard powder in the vinegar in the bottom of a large bowl, then mash in the egg yolk until smooth.
Add the olive oil in a thin stream, working it in steadily with a spoon until the dressing is thick and smooth. Season with pepper and the citrus zest if using.
Wash all the leaves and dry them completely. Tear the larger ones and leave the small ones whole, combining them so that no single leaf dominates any handful.
Add the leaves to the bowl and turn them through the dressing gently with your hands until every leaf is lightly coated. Scatter the flowers over, if using, and serve at once.

Notes

This is a reconstruction and should be understood as one: the leaf combination is Evelyn's explicit prescription for rocket, and the dressing follows the method he sets out in Acetaria, but he gives no single composed recipe for a rocket sallet and the assembly is inferred. Purslane, his Purcelain, is worth seeking out at Turkish or Middle Eastern greengrocers, where it is sold cheaply as semizotu or baqleh; lamb's lettuce is the nearest common substitute in texture though not in the faint sourness. Salad burnet was one of the most used English salad herbs of the period and has almost vanished, but grows very easily. Evelyn was a vigorous advocate of a diet built on plants and would have served this as a course in its own right rather than as an accompaniment.

The Gastrographer

Name: A Sallet of Rocket, after Evelyn
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: England
Ingredients: 100 g rocket (arugula), the sharpest available; 150 g soft round or butterhead lettuce, leaves separated; 80 g purslane, or lamb's lettuce if purslane is unobtainable; 1 handful salad burnet, chervil, or young sorrel leaves; 1 handful edible flowers: violets, borage, or nasturtium (optional); 1 whole egg, hard-boiled, yolk only; 1 tsp English mustard powder; 0.5 tsp fine sea salt; 2 tbsp good white wine vinegar; 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, mild and sweet; 1 pinch black pepper, finely ground; 1 pinch orange or lemon zest, finely grated (optional)

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control