In a Familiar Talk, some pages back, I have alluded to the “Woman with a Way,” who will not use oil in salad dressing. A story which stuck to an eminent magazine publisher to the end of his busy career was of a new cook whose salads won the unqualified approval of her master, who was a gourmand in a gentlemanly way. She had been serving perfect mayonnaises and well-adjusted French dressings for a fortnight, when one of the children fell ill and the doctor prescribed a dose of castor oil. The mother recollected distinctly the purchase of a bottle not long before, but it could not be found. Bridget heard the inquiry going the rounds and came to the front.
“Castor ile—is it ye are wanting? And it is mesilf that was thinking this morning, as I had a right to spake to yez, mem, to order more. I put the lasht dhrop inter the castor yisterday. Salad every day uses a dale of ile.”
Bridget knows better now, and her mistress’s taste is so far cultivated by much use of salad oil that she insists upon having it “pure.”
An airy waitress, in the second day of her trial week in my household, complimented me patronizingly upon the judgment which led me to select “the best brand.”
“There’s no better oil on the market to my way of thinking than the Borducks!” holding a bottle up to let the light fall through the slow liquid amber of “Huile de Bordeaux.”
The oil of Bordeaux is good, when not doctored upon this side of the water. There are olive groves in other foreign lands that send thousands of gallons of pure oil to America to be mixed with cheaper oils, returned to the bottles bearing foreign labels, and palmed off upon the most credulous public upon the globe as the yield of the royal olive.
Pure salad oil, when it has any perceptible odor, should have a faint “nutty” perfume; it should taste like the ripe olives from which it was expressed; in color it should be palest, tenderest green; it should blend readily and harmoniously with condiments and with the body of the salad.
Rub the inside of a bowl with a clove of garlic. Measure into a bowl six tablespoonfuls of oil, two of vinegar, two saltspoonfuls of salt, and one of pepper. Mix thoroughly before pouring over the salad.
Into a chilled soup plate drop the yolk of an egg drained free of all the white, squeeze upon it a teaspoonful of lemon juice and stir in with a silver fork until well mixed. Now add gradually a few drops of salad oil, stirring steadily. As the dressing thickens, add the oil more freely until you have used half a pint. Season with a dash of paprika, a half teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of mustard, and a generous tablespoonful of vinegar.
In making your chicken salad allow a cupful of celery cut into bits to every two cups of the chicken dice, and make a cupful of mayonnaise for five cupfuls of the salad.
Beat three eggs, yolks and whites together, until they are very light; add one teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of red pepper, half a saltspoonful of mustard mixed with a little water, and, lastly, three or four tablespoonfuls of rich, sweet cream.
Have a cupful of rich sour cream very cold, then beat hard for five minutes, adding, as you do so, a tablespoonful of powdered sugar and a half teaspoonful of lemon juice. This dressing is delicious served with chilled cucumbers, sliced thin.
Into three well-beaten eggs stir a cupful of vinegar, a tablespoonful of sugar, two saltspoonfuls of salt, a dash of paprika, and a small teaspoonful of French mustard. Beat thoroughly, turn into a saucepan, stir steadily until the boil begins, and add a teaspoonful of butter. When this melts remove the dressing from the fire. Beat for two minutes and set aside to cool. When cold put in the ice-box, where it will keep a week or ten days.
Cut cold, boiled chicken into small dice. With two cupfuls of this meat mix a cupful of celery cut into dice. Sprinkle all with salt and pepper. Into three tablespoonfuls of oil stir a tablespoonful of vinegar. Pour this over the chicken and celery and toss until well mixed. Line a chilled bowl with crisp lettuce leaves, fill with the chicken salad and pour mayonnaise dressing over all.
Is made in like manner, rejecting the dark meat of the legs, unless it is very tender.
Pick out the meat from a fresh, well-boiled lobster. Cut with a sharp knife into small dice, taking care not to tear the meat. Set on ice while you make a good mayonnaise, which, in turn, must go on the ice. Have ready one-third as much celery as you have lobster, cut into half-inch lengths. Mix together in a bowl, sprinkle with cayenne and salt and stir lightly into it a cupful of mayonnaise. Line a chilled bowl with crisp lettuce, arrange the salad within this; garnish with the lobsters’ claws and hard-boiled eggs cut into lengths lengthwise. Set on ice until it goes to table.
Is made in the same way, omitting the eggs from the garnish.
Choose small oysters for this salad. If you can not get these, cut each oyster in half, but do not chop them. Drain the liquor from the oysters, and to every cupful of these add a cupful of crisp white celery cut into half-inch bits sprinkled lightly with salt. Mix and stir mayonnaise dressing through the mixture. Line a chilled bowl with lettuce leaves, fill with the oyster salad and pour a rich mayonnaise over all. Garnish with stoned olives.
For this dish you can use either the fresh or the canned shrimps. If the former, they must be shelled. If the latter, they must be taken from the can several hours before they are to be used and set on the ice. Line a salad bowl with crisp lettuce leaves, lay the shrimps upon these and cover with mayonnaise dressing. Serve at once.
Cut the tops from ripe tomatoes and remove the insides. Fill the tomato shells with cold boiled shrimps, with their backs up; set each tomato upon a leaf of lettuce and pour mayonnaise dressing over all. A pretty salad.
Carefully strip the skin from six large, firm tomatoes, and remove the centers. Fill the hollowed vegetables with the chopped and seasoned meat of six boiled crabs. Set the stuffed tomatoes in the ice for several hours. Lay on crisp lettuce leaves, and put a spoonful of mayonnaise dressing upon each tomato.
Strain the liquor from a can of tomatoes through coarse muslin. Put over the fire, season with salt and paprika and the strained juice of a small onion. When it boils skim well and pour over half a box of Coxe’s gelatine, which has been soaked three hours in a cup of cold water. Set away to form into a jelly.
When ready to use it line a salad dish with lettuce, arrange the contents of a can of shrimps (strained) upon the leaves, and spoonfuls of tomato jelly upon the shrimps. Send around French salad dressing with it.
Boil eight eggs hard, throw into cold water; peel and lay in ice. Make a cup of mayonnaise and rub into it five large clean-cut pieces of canned salmon. Slice the eggs, lay them on lettuce leaves and pour over them the salmon mayonnaise.
Drain the oil from a box of sardines and squeeze three drops of lemon juice on each fish. Lay crisp lettuce leaves in iced water for half an hour, then shake free of moisture and lay on a chilled platter. On each leaf lay a sardine, and upon this pour a spoonful of thick mayonnaise dressing. Garnish the edge of the platter with cold boiled beets cut into star shapes. Serve with crackers and cream cheese.
Boil eight eggs hard, throw into cold water; peel and lay in the ice. Make a cup of mayonnaise and rub into it four sardines that have been skinned and mashed to a paste. Halve the eggs, lay them on crisp lettuce leaves and pour a spoonful of the sardine mayonnaise over all.
Beat smooth the yolks of three eggs with one teaspoonful of sugar, a half teaspoonful of mustard, one-half teaspoonful of salt, dash of celery salt, one cup of vinegar and one cup of milk, added alternately to prevent curdling, and two tablespoonfuls of oil; put into double boiler and cook to the consistency of thin custard, stirring all the time. Let it get perfectly cold. Line a chilled dish with lettuce leaves, heap hard-boiled eggs, cut into quarters, upon these and pour over them the dressing.
Unless you have an exceptionally deft and cool-fingered cook or waiter, make the salad on the table yourself. Have, first, a finger-bowl passed quietly to you, into which dip your fingers, drying them on your napkin. While you do this the waitress or butler should set before you the oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, with salad spoon and fork and a small bowl, in the bottom of which is a tablespoonful of finely-minced green chives. If you have not these, the inside of the bowl should have been rubbed well with garlic. Mix in the bowl of the spoon a teaspoonful of salt with half as much pepper; fill the large spoon with vinegar, mixing salt and pepper well in this; turn into the mixing bowl; then fill the spoon three times with oil. Stir and toss until the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Two larger bowls should be ready at hand, one empty, the other heaped with crisp, cold lettuce leaves. Pick these apart lightly with the tips of your fingers and put into the empty bowl. When all are in pour the dressing over the lettuce, tossing lightly and quickly with salad fork and spoon. Pass at once with heated crackers and fancy cheese of some kind.
After tearing the lettuce apart, lay, as on a bed, tomatoes pared and sliced, or cut into eighths. Pour the dressing over them.
Salad should never be touched with one’s own knife, but divided, if need be, with the fork. It should not be necessary to remind people who know anything of the by-laws of dining and lunching as received by polite society, that it is awkward and unconventional to hash tender lettuce, celery or cress with knife and fork, clinking against the plate in a castanet accompaniment to table talk. Yet it is done in our sight and hearing almost every day.
Tear apart gingerly, pile in a bowl, and pour a French dressing over it. Some like to dip it into salt, as celery is eaten, without other dressing.
Cut cold-boiled potatoes into tender slices and mix with them two raw white onions, minced, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and two tablespoonfuls of salad oil mixed with a dessertspoonful of vinegar. Toss and turn, and put into a salad bowl. Set in the ice for two hours. Just before sending to the table stir into the salad a half cupful of mayonnaise, and pour the rest of the dressing over the top of the salad.
Peel eight potatoes that have been boiled in their skins and allowed to cool. Slice the potatoes into a bowl and add to them a chopped onion, which has been scalded after it was minced. Season the potato and onion with salt and pepper to taste. Pour upon them five tablespoonfuls of oil and two of vinegar. Toss up well and let them stand an hour before serving.
Cut a young cauliflower into clusters, boil tender, drain and lay in the ice until very cold. Arrange on leaves of lettuce and serve with mayonnaise dressing. A delicious salad.
Boil eight young beets tender; drain, and lay in iced water until thoroughly chilled. Drain once more and scrape off the skins. Pour into a bowl six tablespoonfuls of salad oil with one tablespoonful of vinegar, and stir into them two saltspoonfuls, each, of salt and pepper. Stir this dressing thoroughly. With a sharp knife cut the chilled beets into tiny dice of uniform size, and as you do so drop these dice into the French dressing in the bowl. When all the beets are cut, turn them over and over in the dressing that they may become well coated. Set the bowl and its contents on the ice for an hour, or until very cold. Line a chilled salad bowl with crisp lettuce leaves. Drain all the dressing from the beets into a small glass bowl. Upon each lettuce leaf put a spoonful of the beet dice. When serving, put a spoonful of dressing upon each leaf.
One cup of green peas, boiled and cold, and the same of string beans cut into half-inch lengths, well cooked and suffered to get cold. One cup of celery cut into inch-lengths. One-half cup of boiled carrots, cut into tiny dice, also cold. One cup of red beets boiled and cut into small dice. Leave all these ingredients in the ice-box until chilled and stiff. Have ready a chilled glass or silver bowl—a shallow one is best; heap the beets in the center, arrange next to them a ring of celery dice, then the beans, next the carrots, lastly the peas—all forming a mound. Pour over this a good French dressing, garnish with a wreath of nasturtium blooms about the base and set on the ice until needed. Pass, if you like, a mayonnaise dressing with it. The true salad lover will, however, prefer the French dressing alone. It is a beautiful salad and easily made. If you can not get celery in summer, substitute boiled corn cut from the cob to make the white ring.
Pare four juicy, sweet oranges, peel off every bit of the white inner skin from the fruit it incloses, pull the lobes apart, and cut each into four pieces.
Scald a cupful of English walnut kernels, strip away the bitter skin and let the kernels get dry and cold. Mix with the bits of orange, set on the ice for an hour, heap in a glass salad dish lined with crisp lettuce and cover with a good mayonnaise dressing.
Some consider a tablespoonful of celery cut into small pieces an improvement to this dish.
Scoop the inside from fine, smooth, tart apples, and fill them with a mixture of cut-up celery and walnut meats, blanched and chopped, the whole well moistened with mayonnaise. Slices of pippins are sometimes mixed with watercress and covered with French dressing, making a piquante salad that is especially good with roast duck.
Cut enough crisp celery into small bits to make a cupful. Lay in iced water. Peel and cut four large apples into small dice, dropping these into water as you do so. Drain the celery and sprinkle it with salt. Drain the apples, mix with the celery, and pour over all a thick mayonnaise dressing. Serve very cold.
Peel and divide the oranges into lobes, then cut each of these into three pieces. Have ready four tablespoonfuls of blanched English walnut kernels, cold and firm, for the same number of oranges. In serving, put a leaf of lettuce upon each plate, a great spoonful of the cut oranges upon the leaf and on this last a spoonful of nut-meats. Pour a good mayonnaise over all.
Boil a half cupful of small kidney beans. There should be a cupful when cooked. Cook until soft a pint of tender string beans, cut into inch-lengths. Boil tender four large, or six small red beets. Let all get stone-cold. Cut the beets, then, into tiny dice. In the center of a glass dish heap the beets, next the white beans, and, as an outer circle, the green. Edge with white “heart” lettuce leaves, and pour a French dressing over all.
If you use dried white beans they must be soaked for six hours before boiling.
Cut fine the heart of a large bunch of celery, mince a tablespoonful of parsley and six blades of chives. Mix with a French dressing, stir in lightly the petals of a dozen large nasturtium blossoms; line a salad bowl with crisp lettuce, and put this mixture in the center. Garnish elaborately with nasturtium leaves and blossoms.
Pick the young tender leaves of the dandelion, wash and lay in ice water for half an hour. Drain, shake dry and pat still drier between the folds of a napkin. Turn into a chilled bowl, cover with a French dressing, toss the greens over and over in this and send at once to table.
This is very wholesome—and palatable—to those that like it!
Shred a small white cabbage very fine. Heat a gill of vinegar, add to it a tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a dash of celery salt and white pepper. Bring to a boil, stir in the shredded cabbage, and stir until very hot. Have ready a half cupful of milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved, and stir it slowly into three beaten eggs. Boil until it is like thick cream. Pour this mixture over the hot cabbage, mix well together, season to taste, and turn into a chilled bowl. Bury in the ice until very cold.
Shred a white cabbage fine. Heat a cup of milk. Heat, also, a gill of vinegar, and when this last is boiling, stir into it a tablespoonful, each, of butter and sugar, a teaspoonful of celery essence, two saltspoonfuls of salt and one of pepper. When boiling hard, stir in the shredded cabbage, and as soon as this is really hot, remove it from the fire. Pour the scalding milk slowly upon two beaten eggs and cook, stirring steadily until thick, then pour upon the cabbage and toss until well mixed. Set in the ice for two hours. Serve very cold.
Select small, firm cucumbers of uniform size. Wash well in cold water. Dry thoroughly. Make two incisions in the top of the cucumber about an inch from each end and about one-half inch deep. Next cut lengthwise from one incision to the other carefully and remove the top. Scoop out the pulp and mix with salt. Then chop some celery fine (if celery is out of season substitute cabbage), and some blanched walnut meats, also chopped. After the cucumber pulp has stood about an hour in the salt drain off the water and add the celery and the nuts. Mix thoroughly with a French dressing, and about twenty minutes before serving fill up the shells, placing a piece of parsley in each end.
Lay fresh cucumbers in the ice for twelve hours. Peel and slice very thin, and send immediately to the table covered with crushed ice. As you dish them put some of the ice on each plate and pour over the cucumbers a dressing made of two parts of salad oil and one part of lemon juice, with salt and paprika to taste.
Cut two-inch rounds of cream or Neufchâtel cheese one-half inch in thickness, and place on crisp lettuce leaves. Put the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs through the vegetable-press and place a teaspoonful of this yellow powder in the center of each round. Serve mayonnaise or French dressing in a separate bowl.
Make a good French dressing. Dip into it firm, crisp lettuce leaves. Have ready cold boiled tongue, cut as thin as writing paper. Lay a slice upon each leaf, and serve with heated and buttered crackers. You can substitute ham for the tongue.
Soak a half-box of gelatine in a half-pint of water for an hour. Bring to a boil the liquor drained from a quart can of tomatoes, and add to it a teaspoonful of onion juice, two teaspoonfuls of sugar, a bay leaf and a teaspoonful of minced parsley, with pepper and salt to taste. Simmer for twenty minutes, add the gelatine, stir until dissolved, and strain through flannel into a jelly mold. Serve when firm, garnished with lettuce and pour over all a mayonnaise dressing. This jelly—in culinary phrase, “aspic”—lends itself agreeably to many combinations of salad, being susceptible of countless variations.
Carefully peel and halve ripe tomatoes and lay them on the ice for several hours. Transfer to a chilled platter, sprinkle with salt, garnish with lettuce leaves and put a great spoonful of whipped cream upon each tomato half.
Pour boiling water over large, smooth tomatoes to loosen the skins, and set on ice. When perfectly cold, gouge out the center of each tomato with a spoon, and fill the cavity with boiled corn cut from the cob and left to get perfectly cold; then mix with mayonnaise dressing. Arrange the tomatoes on a chilled platter lined with lettuce, and leave on ice until wanted. Pass more mayonnaise with the salad.
Prepare the tomatoes as in the last recipe. Have ready a pint or more of roasted peanut meats, blanched by pouring boiling water over them, then skinned, and when cold pounded finely and mixed with mayonnaise dressing. Fill the tomatoes with this. Serve on lettuce leaves.
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Cook a quart of raw tomatoes soft, strain and season with nutmeg, sugar, paprika, a pinch of grated lemon peel and salt. Freeze until firm; put a spoonful upon a crisp lettuce leaf in each plate, cover with mayonnaise and serve immediately. It is still prettier if you can freeze it in round apple-shaped molds.
Canned tomatoes may be used if you have not fresh.
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Remove the skins and black heads of cold clams. Marinade for ten minutes in a French dressing and serve on a bed of shredded lettuce.
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Peel and slice five sweet, ripe pears, sprinkle with fine sugar, and add a little maraschino or ginger syrup. Serve with a little cream. Or pare and slice enough ripe, sweet pears to make one pint; add one-half cupful of blanched and chopped almonds, one-fourth of a cupful of powdered sugar and the strained juice of two lemons. Serve in a cup of lettuce leaves made by placing together the stem end of two lettuce leaves taken from the inside of a head of lettuce.
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Put into a frying-pan one-fourth of a pound of bacon, cut into dice; when light brown take out and sauté in the fat a small onion cut fine. Add one-half as much vinegar as fat, a few grains of salt and cayenne and one-half as much hot stock as vinegar. Have ready the potatoes boiled in skins. Remove the skins and slice hot into the frying-pan enough to take up the liquid. Add the diced bacon, toss together and serve.
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To one cupful of shrimps add two cupfuls of cold cooked asparagus tips, and toss lightly together. Season with salt and pepper. Make a dressing of the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, rubbed through a sieve, and sufficient oil and vinegar to make the consistency of cream, using twice as much oil as vinegar. Pour over the asparagus and shrimps.
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Asparagus tips heaped on lettuce leaves and served with French, mayonnaise or boiled dressing, poured over all, make a very good salad.
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Use the well-blanched leaves only. Wipe these with a damp cloth. Pour over this a French dressing and serve with roasted game.
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Marinate one pair of sweetbreads in French dressing. Chill thoroughly. Drain and mix with equal parts of sliced cucumber; cover with French dressing into which has been stirred whipped cream.
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Select the young, tender leaves from the center of the stock; wash carefully, drain and chill and serve with French dressing.
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Line the bottom of the salad-dish with crisp lettuce leaves. Fill the center of the dish with cold boiled or baked fish, cut into pieces, and pour over it a pint of mayonnaise dressing. Garnish with rings of hard-boiled eggs.
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Pare and cut into small pieces four medium-sized apples. Pour over this a French dressing. Pick carefully the leaves from a bunch of cress. Arrange around the outside of the salad-dish and heap the apples in the center of the dish.
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Choose the heart from a nice head of lettuce, putting the stems together to form a cup. Put a few strawberries in the center and cover with powdered sugar and one teaspoonful of mayonnaise dressing.
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Sliced bananas, served in the same manner as the strawberries in the above recipe, make an excellent salad.
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Use equal parts of well-cooked cold veal cut into small pieces, and finely-chopped white cabbage. Marinate the veal for two hours. Drain and mix with the cabbage. Season with salt and pepper, and a little chopped pickle, and cover with mayonnaise dressing.
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Stone a pint of large cherries, being careful not to bruise the fruit. Place a hazelnut in each cherry to preserve the form. Chill thoroughly, arrange in a salad dish on lettuce leaves and pour over all a cream mayonnaise dressing.
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Pare a quart of ripe yellow peaches, and cut into thin slices; slice very thin a half cupful of blanched almonds. Mix the fruit and nuts with two-thirds of a cupful of mayonnaise, to which has been added one-third of a cupful of whipped cream. Serve immediately on lettuce leaves.
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Mix equal portions of minced, well-cooked ham and English walnuts or almonds. Serve with mayonnaise on lettuce leaves.
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Wash the sweetbreads thoroughly and let them stand in cold water half an hour. Boil in salted water twenty minutes and then put in cold water again for a few minutes, to harden. To one cupful of minced sweetbreads add one cupful of diced celery and one-half cupful of chopped nuts. Cover well with mayonnaise dressing to which some whipped cream has been added.
(Contributed)
Select fresh string beans and boil until tender in salted water. Or use a good quality of canned string beans. Arrange on a dish and serve with mayonnaise dressing.
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Drain and press through a sieve a can of green peas. Dissolve one box of gelatine in one-fourth of a cup of cold water and stir over a hot fire until heated. Take from the fire and add one-fourth teaspoonful of onion juice, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and a dash of pepper. Serve very cold with the following dressing: Put into a double boiler the yolks of two eggs, two tablespoonfuls of stock and two tablespoonfuls of oil. Stir until thick, take from the fire and add slowly one tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar, one chopped olive and two teaspoonfuls of chopped parsley.
Blanch almond kernels, and when cold and crisp shred into shavings. Mix with these an equal quantity of English walnuts, broken into bits, and pecan kernels. Stir a good mayonnaise dressing into the mixture and heap within curled lettuce leaves.