Weeknight Dinner: Elmhurst Hoagie Salad
It can be a challenge for we who grew up in Grandma’s Kitchen to think of salad as a meal in itself. To us, through countless years of training weeknight dinner has been realized through the classic Home Ec meal design of a protein, a starchy side, a vegetable side, and dessert. In this practice, salad is a side dish or, on days when one is feeling virtuous, what you eat for lunch. Old-fashioned dinner menus are their own study, and a visit to the vintage cookbooks on the Homekeeper’s Bookshelf provides a fascinating glimpse into what was served for dinner at the American Table just a couple of generations ago. Wednesday night pork chops self-resurrected from a pool of the milk they cooked in, served over bullets of boiled white rice or a slither of egg noodles, accented by a dish of such fresh delicacies as lettuce in cream, salted cucumbers and tomatoes, even a fruit compote. Other treasures from the vintage veggie vault include aspics and molded salads, and countless ways to dress up canned and frozen vegetables for an appearance the dinner table.
In my grandmother’s kitchen, fresh vegetables and salad, while related, were separate serves. In season, she served fresh vegetables from her garden, cleaned, chilled, and presented in and of themselves: slices of cucumber sprinkled with vinegar and rock salt, yellow tomatoes placed as naked wedges in a bowl of her yellow Depression glass, rounds of sweet-hot red onion. Fresh salad was iceberg lettuce formed into cups and sprinkled with oil, salt, and pepper, whereas fancy salads for gatherings were three-bean, cole slaw, or the dreaded seven layer. Upon moving north, I learned about salad beyond the farmhouse table and church sideboard. In Pennsylvania, I fell with the gratitude of true discovery upon a bowl of Nana’s legendary pepper slaw even as I was bewildered by the preponderance of beets. I learned to eat chow-chow on a bowl of beans, and potato salad made with mustard and capers rather than mayo and pickles. In New York City, I tasted my first Caesar salad, prepared tableside, at the long-gone Joe’s Bar and Grill in the West Village. I fell so in love with the dish that it was the first dinner salad I learned how to make.
But it wasn’t the last. At Paris Commune, known for its brunches, I discovered Salade Nicoise, served alongside coffee from a French Press and a sparkling dram of Crème de Menthe, Cassis, or Lillet. At the Greek Diner, I encountered both the mighty Greek Salad and the local specialty Hoagie Salad. A health food restaurant near NYU served a salmon salad with mugs of hot Mu tea; nothing tasted so clean and filling. Taking a cue from my grandma, I investigated fresh vegetables as an interesting side dish as themselves, creating a vibrant pepper salad, fresh fennel tossed with oranges, and a version of green salad that takes the name literally. Many of these recipes are posted on Urban Home Blog – look for the salad tag – and three more are about to be. In this month of new growth as spring vegetables appear in garden and market, here is the first of three dinner salad recipes we serve our urban home.
I have no idea how authentic a phenomenon hoagie salad is, but I have encountered it at numerous diners and delis in my old nabe of Queens. The most exuberantwas at the Georgia Peach in Elmhurst, where the salad arrives at table large enough to feed two and just exactly as named: all of the ingredients in that most fundamental of neighborhood foods, the hoagie, reimagined as a composed salad. I started making it at home, where it remains a staple of weeknight dinner. One distinction is the usage of that wonderful shredded iceberg lettuce from the deli, tossed with lemon and salt just as the sandwich makers do. Don’t cut corners on that step; it makes a real difference. Once you have mastered the basic recipe, you can develop your own household version of it as we did, perhaps using hot cappy or pancetta in the salumi, adding a dusting of Parmesan, even adding a few slices of grilled chicken breast. And, if in true school neighborhood style the salad seems lonely without a hoagie roll, serve it, as we do, with a slab of garlic bread.
Elmhurst Hoagie Salad
Get the salumi at the deli; it will be of superior quality.
For the salad
1 head iceberg lettuce
1 small red onion, peeled, cored, and diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 lemon
10 slices sandwich Pepperoni
4 slices Soppressata
6 slices hard- or Genoa Salami
10 slices deli Provolone
Salt
Pepper
Dried oregano
For the table
Italian dressing (click here for recipe)
Marinated olives (click here for recipe)
1 jar pepperoncini or giardiniera (click here for recipe)
Garlic bread (click here for recipe)
Prepare the lettuce
In my grandmother’s kitchen, fresh vegetables and salad, while related, were separate serves. In season, she served fresh vegetables from her garden, cleaned, chilled, and presented in and of themselves: slices of cucumber sprinkled with vinegar and rock salt, yellow tomatoes placed as naked wedges in a bowl of her yellow Depression glass, rounds of sweet-hot red onion. Fresh salad was iceberg lettuce formed into cups and sprinkled with oil, salt, and pepper, whereas fancy salads for gatherings were three-bean, cole slaw, or the dreaded seven layer. Upon moving north, I learned about salad beyond the farmhouse table and church sideboard. In Pennsylvania, I fell with the gratitude of true discovery upon a bowl of Nana’s legendary pepper slaw even as I was bewildered by the preponderance of beets. I learned to eat chow-chow on a bowl of beans, and potato salad made with mustard and capers rather than mayo and pickles. In New York City, I tasted my first Caesar salad, prepared tableside, at the long-gone Joe’s Bar and Grill in the West Village. I fell so in love with the dish that it was the first dinner salad I learned how to make.
But it wasn’t the last. At Paris Commune, known for its brunches, I discovered Salade Nicoise, served alongside coffee from a French Press and a sparkling dram of Crème de Menthe, Cassis, or Lillet. At the Greek Diner, I encountered both the mighty Greek Salad and the local specialty Hoagie Salad. A health food restaurant near NYU served a salmon salad with mugs of hot Mu tea; nothing tasted so clean and filling. Taking a cue from my grandma, I investigated fresh vegetables as an interesting side dish as themselves, creating a vibrant pepper salad, fresh fennel tossed with oranges, and a version of green salad that takes the name literally. Many of these recipes are posted on Urban Home Blog – look for the salad tag – and three more are about to be. In this month of new growth as spring vegetables appear in garden and market, here is the first of three dinner salad recipes we serve our urban home.
I have no idea how authentic a phenomenon hoagie salad is, but I have encountered it at numerous diners and delis in my old nabe of Queens. The most exuberantwas at the Georgia Peach in Elmhurst, where the salad arrives at table large enough to feed two and just exactly as named: all of the ingredients in that most fundamental of neighborhood foods, the hoagie, reimagined as a composed salad. I started making it at home, where it remains a staple of weeknight dinner. One distinction is the usage of that wonderful shredded iceberg lettuce from the deli, tossed with lemon and salt just as the sandwich makers do. Don’t cut corners on that step; it makes a real difference. Once you have mastered the basic recipe, you can develop your own household version of it as we did, perhaps using hot cappy or pancetta in the salumi, adding a dusting of Parmesan, even adding a few slices of grilled chicken breast. And, if in true school neighborhood style the salad seems lonely without a hoagie roll, serve it, as we do, with a slab of garlic bread.
Elmhurst Hoagie Salad
Get the salumi at the deli; it will be of superior quality.
For the salad
1 head iceberg lettuce
1 small red onion, peeled, cored, and diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 lemon
10 slices sandwich Pepperoni
4 slices Soppressata
6 slices hard- or Genoa Salami
10 slices deli Provolone
Salt
Pepper
Dried oregano
For the table
Italian dressing (click here for recipe)
Marinated olives (click here for recipe)
1 jar pepperoncini or giardiniera (click here for recipe)
Garlic bread (click here for recipe)
Prepare the lettuce
- Safely insert a strong knife next to the core on the bottom of the head of lettuce. Safely use the knife to cut around the core in a circle. Once you've cut around the core, remove it and set it aside for composting.
- Safely use the knife to cut the lettuce in half. Cut each half into halves to form quarters.
- Safely use the knife to cut each quarter from the cut end to the outer edge, forming ribbons.
- Transfer the chiffonaded lettuce to an in-sink colander. Sprinkle the lettuce with salt.
- Cut the lemon in half. Squeeze both halves of the lemon over the salted lettuce, tossing the lettuce to coat with lemon juice and catch and remove any lemon seeds.
- Cover the lettuce with paper towels and leave to drain while you prepare the rest of the salad.
- For each salami and for the cheese, stack the slices on top each other. Cut down the center of each stack to form halves. Cut down the center of each half to form quarters. Cut across each quarter to form eighths.
- Set the cut salumi aside until ready to assemble the salad.
Assemble and serve the salad
- Give the in-sink colander a gentle shake. Transfer a generous amount of lettuce into a large salad bowl.
- Scatter the lettuce with diced red onion and halved cherry tomatoes.
- Sprinkle the salad with several grindings of fresh black pepper and some dried oregano.
- Distribute the salumi across the salad. It may look like too much; it isn't.
- Distribute the Provolone across the salad.
- Serve with Italian dressing, marinated olives, pepperoncini or giardiniera, and garlic bread.
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