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.
Simple lettuce salad
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.
Lettuce and tomato salad
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.
Water cress salad
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.
Potato salad (No. 1)
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.
Potato salad (No. 2)
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.
Cauliflower salad
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.
Beet 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.
A macedoine salad
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.
A fruit salad
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.
Apple and nut salad
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.
Apple and celery salad
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.
Orange salad
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.
Bean and beet salad
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.
[Illustration: FRUIT SALAD IN BANANA-SKIN
CHICKEN SALAD MANTLED WITH CREAM MAYONNAISE AND GARNISHED
FRUIT SALAD GARNISHED WITH MARRONS GLACÉS]
A pretty and palatable salad.
If you use dried white beans they must be soaked for six hours before
boiling.
Nasturtium salad
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.
Dandelion salad
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!
Cabbage salad
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.
Cold slaw
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.
Cucumber salad
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.
Cucumbers with lemon juice
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.
Daisy salad
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.
Tongue salad
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.
Tomato aspic
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.
Tomatoes with whipped cream
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.
Tomato and corn salad
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.
Tomato and peanut 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.
Iced tomato salad
(Contributed)
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.
Clam salad
(Contributed)
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.
Pear salad
(Contributed)
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.
Hot potato salad
(Contributed)
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.
Asparagus and shrimp salad
(Contributed)
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.
Asparagus salad
(Contributed)
Asparagus tips heaped on lettuce leaves and served with French,
mayonnaise or boiled dressing, poured over all, make a very good salad.
Endive salad
(Contributed)
Use the well-blanched leaves only. Wipe these with a damp cloth. Pour
over this a French dressing and serve with roasted game.
Sweetbreads and cucumber salad
(Contributed)
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.
Spinach salad
(Contributed)
Select the young, tender leaves from the center of the stock; wash
carefully, drain and chill and serve with French dressing.
Lenten salad
(Contributed)
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.
Apple and cress salad
(Contributed)
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.
Strawberry salad
(Contributed)
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.
Banana salad
(Contributed)
Sliced bananas, served in the same manner as the strawberries in the
above recipe, make an excellent salad.
Veal salad
(Contributed)
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.
Cherry salad
(Contributed)
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.
Peach salad
(Contributed)
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.
Ham salad
(Contributed)
Mix equal portions of minced, well-cooked ham and English walnuts or
almonds. Serve with mayonnaise on lettuce leaves.
Sweetbreads with celery salad
(Contributed)
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.
Green bean salad
(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.
Pea salad
(Contributed)
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.
Nut salad
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.
LUNCHEON FRUITS, COOKED AND RAW
Stewed rhubarb
Select only good, firm stalks, and reject those that are withered. Lay
them in cold water for an hour, and cut into half-inch pieces. Put
them over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan and strew each layer
plentifully with sugar. Pour in enough water to cover all, and bring
very slowly to a boil. Let the rhubarb stew gently until it is very
tender, then remove from the fire. When cold, serve with plain cake.
Rhubarb and raisins
For every cupful of raw rhubarb cut into inch lengths add a third as
much of raisins seeded and cut in half. Cook until soft, as directed in
last recipe.
Rhubarb and dates
Stone a quarter of a pound of dates, cover with hot water, and cook
five minutes. Add three cupfuls of raw rhubarb, cut into inch lengths,
and cook, closely covered, until the rhubarb is tender. Sweeten to
taste and set aside to cool in a covered bowl, after which set on ice
until needed.
Rhubarb and figs
Soak a quarter-pound of figs in warm water for two hours. Cut into
small pieces and cook as previously directed with three cups of raw
rhubarb, cut into inch lengths, until the rhubarb is tender. Eat cold.
This dish is cooling to the blood, gently laxative and pleasing to the
taste.
Stewed gooseberries
Remove the tops and stems from one quart of gooseberries, wash and
drain. Put them into a saucepan with barely enough boiling water to
cover them. Let them stew until tender. Dissolve one cupful of sugar
in one-half cupful of water and boil to a syrup, then mix it with the
fruit and set away to cool.
Agate-nickel-steel ware is altogether the best in the market for
stewing acid fruits. They should never be cooked in tin or in iron,
and unless copper has just been cleaned with vinegar to remove all
suspicion of verdigris, the use of it is dangerous. I can not say too
much of the ware I have named. It is easily kept clean, durable and
safe.
Hot green apple sauce
Utilize in this way early windfalls and unripe summer apples,
proverbially dear to the heart of the small boy and harmful to his
digestive organs.
Pare and slice thin with a silver knife or with a fruit-knife of
Swedish bronze. The crude acid forms an instant and unpleasant
combination with steel. As you slice, drop into cold water to keep the
color. Cook in an agate-nickel-steel saucepan, with just enough boiling
water to keep the apples from burning to the bottom. Fit on a close lid
and do not open the pan for half an hour, lest the steam escape. Shake
up, and sidewise, every ten minutes to insure uniform steaming. When
the half-hour is up open the saucepan, and if the apples are soft rub
quickly through a colander of the same ware with the saucepan. Beat in
sugar to taste, also a lump of butter—about a tablespoonful to a quart
of the stewed fruit; turn into a covered bowl and serve hot. Pass thin
graham bread and butter with it.
It is wholesome, anti-bilious and palatable.
Cold apple sauce
Make in the same way of ripe, tart apples, a seasoning with mace or
nutmeg to taste. When it has cooled set on ice until wanted.
Stewed apples
Pare and core a dozen tart, juicy apples. Put them into a saucepan with
just enough cold water to cover them. Cook slowly until they are tender
and clear. Then remove the apples to a bowl, and cover to keep hot; put
the juice into a saucepan with a cupful of sugar, and boil for half an
hour. Season with mace or nutmeg. Pour hot over the apples and set away
covered until cold. Eat with cream.
Baked sweet apples
Wash and core, but do not pare them. Arrange in a deep pudding-dish;
put a teaspoonful of sugar and the tiniest imaginable bit of salt into
the cavities left by coring; pour in a half cupful of water for a large
dishful of apples; cover closely and bake in a good oven forty minutes
or until soft.
Eat ice-cold, with cream and sugar.
Stewed prunes
Wash dried prunes and soak them for at least five hours in cold water.
Put them into a saucepan with enough water to cover them and simmer
very gently for twenty minutes. Now add sufficient granulated sugar to
sweeten liberally, and simmer until the prunes are tender. Take from
the fire and set aside to cool. Eat with plain cake.
Steamed prunes
Soak as directed above. Place them in a covered roaster and steam
steadily for two hours. Make a syrup in a separate vessel with the
water left from the soaking. This recipe is especially suited to those
who desire but little sugar in prunes, as but little sweetness can be
added to the prunes in steaming.
Never boil prunes, as the flavor is thereby injured. When cooked as
directed, if the syrup is not heavy enough to suit, remove the prunes
from the syrup and boil the syrup down to the required consistency.
Stewed prunelles and sultanas
Prunelles are more than subacid, and need the modifying influence of
sweeter fruits. Allow equal parts of prunelles and of the small sultana
raisins. Wash the fruit in tepid water, and soak it in enough cold
water to cover it for several hours, on the back of the range. Draw
them forward where they will simmer gently until soft. Add sugar to
taste, let the syrup boil up once, then set away to cool.
Dried apples and peaches
The prejudice against the dried apple of commerce is pronounced, and
founded upon traditions we should have outlived. The kiln-dried fruit
of to-day is a respectable edible and capable of excellent results. It
is especially good if mixed with equal parts of dried peaches, soaked
for three hours in just enough tepid water to cover the fruit (having
been first washed); then put over the fire with the water in which they
were soaked, and simmer tender. Rub through a colander, add sugar,
cinnamon and cloves to taste, and let the mixture get perfectly cold.
Stewed cherries
None of our small fruits are more injured by transportation than these
same luscious and ruddy lobes. If you must buy cherries which are
brought from a distance and are, of necessity, several days old, cook
them if you regard the welfare of the digestive organs of your family.
The verse that tells us “cherries are ripe” would be more reassuring if
it also informed us that they were recently picked.