Russian Vegetable Salad.Russian Vegetable Salad.
Macedoine of Vegetable Salad.Macedoine of Vegetable Salad.
Seepage 47
Pare a short cucumber and cut it lengthwise in two parts; remove the seeds and let chill in ice water for an hour. Chop together the solid part of a peeled and seeded tomato, half a slice of new onion, a stalk of celery and a sprig of parsley; mix with mayonnaise or a boiled dressing and use as a filling for the well-dried halves of cucumber. Serve on cress or lettuce.
(See cut facingpage 58.)
Cook the cowslip leaves until tender in boiling salted water, reserving a few choice leaves with blossoms for a garnish. Chop fine, season to taste with salt and paprica, press into a mould, and set aside to become chilled. Slice chilled cream cheese (Neufchatel or cottage) in uniform slices, and arrange at the sides of the mound. Serve with French or mayonnaise dressing.
Separate a cauliflower into flowerets and boil in salted water until tender,not longer. Drain carefully. Season with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of chopped tarragon leaves (or use tarragon vinegar). Arrange symmetrically in an earthen bowl, having the upper surface level. Let stand to become thoroughly chilled, then turn on to a serving-dish; the shape of the mould will beretained. Cover with mayonnaise dressing or Sauce Tartare, and surround with lengthwise quarters of hard-boiled eggs.
Boil the potatoes and let cool without paring. Then remove the skins and cut into slices, balls, or cubes. Squeeze over them a little onion juice, sprinkle with fine-chopped parsley, and let stand in a French dressing several hours. Mix the dressing after the usual formula, and use enough to moisten well the potato. When ready to serve, make nests of heart leaves of lettuce, put a spoonful of the potato in each, with a teaspoonful of mayonnaise above, sprinkle the mayonnaise with capers, and press the quarter of a hard-boiled egg into the top of the mayonnaise. Or add the chopped white of egg to the potato before marinating, and sift the yolk over the mayonnaise.
"Some choice sous'd fish brought couchant in a dish,Among some fennel."
"Of what complexion?Of the sea water green, sir."
Ever, and justly, fish have taken high rank in the list of salad ingredients. No wonder, when we consider that nothing excels in delicacy of flavor many a variety of fish; and, while fish are not necessarily expensive in any locality, in many sections of the country their cost is merely nominal. Then, too, salad-making appeals largely to one's artistic nature, and the products of sea and fresh water are constantly furnishing opportunities for studies in many and varied shades of color. The lobster's vivid red, the brilliant tints of the salmon and red snapper, the delicate pink of shrimps, the dull white of scallops and halibut, and the bluish gray of mackerel and bluefish, each, in its season, may be made to contrast most effectively with fresh green herbs and yellow dressings.
Oysters, scallops and little-neck clams are frequently served in salads without cooking. These should be carefully washed, then drained and set aside in a marinade for an hour. When cooked, they should be heated to the boiling-point in their own liquor, then drained and cut in halves. The adductor muscle of the oyster—the white, button-shaped part that connects the animal with its shell—is often discarded. Other fish than shellfish,when used in salads, are boiled, broiled or baked; they present the best appearance, however, when boiled. Thudichum recommends sea water, whenever it is available, for boiling fish; lacking this, hot water, salted (an ounce of salt to a quart of water), and acidulated pleasantly with lemon juice or vinegar, is the proper medium of cooking. The addition of a slice or two of onion and carrot, a sprig of parsley, a stalk of celery, with aromatic herbs or spices, provided they be not used so freely as to overpower the delicate savor of the fish, is thought to improve the dish.
The quantity of water should be adjusted to the size of the fish; in no case should it be larger than will suffice to produce the desired result. At the moment the fish is immersed in the water the temperature should be at the boiling-point, and thereafter the vessel should be permitted to simmer during the process of cooking.
The fish may be cooked whole, or cut into small pieces, similar in shape and size. In the latter case a wire basket is of service, as, by this means, the fish may be easily removed from the water and drained. If the fish is to be served whole, remove the skin and fins, and, when thoroughly cold, mask with jelly mayonnaise or with a fancy butter. After chilling again, the mask may be decorated with capers, olives, eggs, etc. If the fish is to be used in flakes, the flakes will separate more easily while the fish is still hot. In marinating fish, let the proportions of oil and acid vary with the kind of fish;i.e., according to the oily nature of the flesh.
Dress the trout without removing the heads; boil as previously indicated. Remove the backbone without destroying the shape of the fish. Serve, thoroughly chilled, on crisp lettuce leaves dressed with claret or French dressing. Prepare the latter with tarragon vinegar.
Pour a little chicken aspic into a pickle or other dish of suitable shape and size for a single fish; when nearly set, lay a trout, prepared as above, upon the aspic, add a few spoonfuls of aspic, let it harden so that the fish may become fixed in place, then add aspic to cover. Slices of cucumber pickles, capers, or other ornaments, may be used. When the aspic is thoroughly set and chilled, remove from the mould and serve on two lettuce leaves, with any dressing desired.
Flake the fish and marinate with French dressing (three tablespoonfuls of oil, one tablespoonful of lemon juice or vinegar, a dash of salt andpepper, for each pint of fish); drain, and add half as much boiled potato, cut in small cubes and dressed with French dressing. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves. Garnish with sardine dressing. Shredded lettuce or peas may be used in place of the potato.
Ingredients.
Method.—Flake one pound of cooked halibut while hot, and marinate with the oil, lemon juice, onion juice, salt and pepper. When cold drain and mix with the pimentos, shredded, after cutting from the same a few star-shaped or other fanciful figures. Arrange heart leaves of lettuce in an upright position in the centre of a serving-dish, the fish and pimentos around the lettuce, and, around these, one large or two small cucumbers, cut in small cubes and mixed with French dressing. With salmon use capers instead of pimentos. Use enough dressing to moisten the cucumbers thoroughly.
Steam a thick slice of chicken halibut, until the flesh separates easily from the bone. Remove the skin and bones without disturbing the shape of thefish. Marinate, while hot, with three tablespoonfuls of oil, one tablespoonful of vinegar or lemon juice, and salt and pepper. When cold put the fish on a serving-dish, and, using endive or Boston Market lettuce, put the ends of the leaves beneath the fish, so that the tops of the leaves will fall over upon the fish. Garnish the top with stars of mayonnaise. Between the leaves dispose sliced pim-olas and fans cut from small gherkins. Serve mayonnaise with the salad.
Ingredients.
Method.—Remove the skin and bone from the halibut, thus securing eight fillets. Season with salt, pepper, onion and lemon juice. Chop the lobster meat fine; melt the butter, cook in it the flour and seasonings, add the cream and lobster stock, and, when cooked, stir in the chopped lobster. When cool spread upon one side of the fillets, roll up the fillets and fasten with woodentoothpicks that have been dipped in melted butter. Bake on a fish-sheet about fifteen minutes, basting with butter melted in hot water.
Set a plain border-mould in ice water; decorate the bottom and sides with pim-olas or gherkins cut in slices and dipped in half-set aspic; cover the decoration on the bottom with aspic, and, when set and the decorations on the side are "fixed" in place, arrange on the aspic the cold fillets of fish and fill the mould with more aspic. When cold turn from the mould and fill the centre with diced cucumbers and sliced radishes dressed with French dressing. Pass mayonnaise or French dressing in a separate dish. Surround the aspic with shredded lettuce if desired.
Use a generous half-pint of oysters in the place of the lobster, parboiling and draining before chopping, and fill in the centre of the aspic with coleslaw.
Miroton of Fish and Potato Salad.Miroton of Fish and Potato Salad.
Cowslip and Cream Cheese Salad.Cowslip and Cream Cheese Salad.
Seepage 49
Marinate one pint of cold cooked fish—salmon, cod, haddock, halibut, etc.—with three or four tablespoonfuls of oil, half a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper and two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. Marinate, separately, one pint of cold potatoes, cooked in their skins and cut in cubes, with the same quantity of dressing, adding also one teaspoonful of onion juice. Let stand in a coolplace one hour or more. Have ready six hard-boiled eggs; cut a thin slice from the round end of each egg, that it may stand upright, then cut in quarters lengthwise. Dip into a little aspic jelly or melted gelatine and arrange the quarters in the form of a circle, with the yolks outside. Toss together the fish, potato and three tablespoonfuls of capers, and fill in the centre of the circle. Dust with fine-chopped parsley or beets; add a tuft of lettuce at the top and a few heart leaves of lettuce above the crown of eggs.
Cover the bottom of a mould with aspic to the depth of one-fourth an inch. Set the mould in ice water, and, when the aspic is set, arrange upon it a decoration of cooked vegetables cut in shapes with French cutter, or fashion a conventional design or some flower. Dogwood blossoms provide a simple pattern, and one easily carried out. Cut the four petals from a thin slice of cooked turnip and the centre of the blossom from carrot or lemon peel. Fasten each piece in place with liquid jelly, and, when set, cover with more jelly. To decorate the sides of the mould, take the figures on the point of a skewer, dip in jelly, then set in position against thechilledsides of the mould, and they will remain in place. After the jelly covering the figures on the bottom of the mould has "set," place a smaller mould in the centre of the aspic in the first, and fill this with ice and water. Pour inaspic to fill the space about the smaller mould, and, when this aspic is firm, dip out the water and ice. Fill withwarmwater and quickly remove the mould. Separate a pound of cooked fish into flakes, add half a cup of cold cooked peas, three or four gherkins, cut very fine, and three tablespoonfuls of capers. Mix together and then mix with one cup of mayonnaise made with jelly; with this fill the vacant space in the mould. When ready to serve, dip the mould very quickly into warm water, letting the water rise to the top of the mould, and invert over a serving-dish; remove the mould, and garnish with lettuce, tiny gherkins cut to resemble fans, blocks of aspic, or aspic moulded in shells, and mayonnaise.
Decorate the mould as before; then put in a layer of the fish and dressing; when set, add a layer of aspic; alternate the layers until the materials are used or the mould is filled. Individual moulds may be prepared in the same way.
Separate a cooked fish into flakes and mix with the chopped whites and sifted yolks of three hard-boiled eggs. Season with French dressing, mix lightly and turn on to a bed of lettuce or cress, also seasoned with the dressing. Garnish with fans cut from small gherkins, or with pickled beet cut in fanciful shape or chopped.
Freshen the fish carefully before cooking. Use equal parts of fish, flaked, and cold boiled potatoes. If potatoes are specially prepared for the purpose, cut them in cubes or balls, blanch, and cook in well-seasoned beef stock; drain, and add, when cold, to the fish. Season with French dressing. Arrange on a bed of cress and sift the yolk of an egg over the whole.
Cook two shad roes with an onion, sliced, and a bay leaf, in salted, acidulated water twenty minutes; drain, and marinate with about two tablespoonfuls of oil, one tablespoonful of lemon juice and a dash of pepper and salt. When cold cut in small cubes. Rub the salad-bowl with a clove of garlic cut in halves. Cut a thoroughly chilled cucumber in dice; put the cucumber on a bed of lettuce leaves in the bottom of the bowl, and the roe, well drained, above; mask with mayonnaise,—nearly a cup will be required,—in the top insert a few heart leaves of lettuce, and place around the centre of the mound a circle of cucumber slices overlapping one another; or alternate these with lozenges cut from pickled beet.
Butter four small dariole moulds, or small cups; sprinkle the butter with chopped parsley. Select four small pieces of cooked salmon, dry on a softcloth so as to remove all oily liquor, and put a piece in each mould. Beat two eggs (or, better, one egg and the yolks of two) slightly, season with one-fourth a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of paprica and a few drops of anchovy essence or onion juice; add half a cup of milk, and, when well mixed, pour into the moulds around the fish. Set the moulds in a pan of hot water and bake until the custard is set. Do not let the water boil. Chill thoroughly, then turn from the moulds on to lettuce leaves. Serve with a star of mayonnaise dressing on the top of eachboudin.
Russian Salad.Russian Salad.
Halibut Salad.Halibut Salad.
(Boston Cooking-School.)Ingredients.
Method.—Marinate the carrots and potatoes, cut in small pieces, also the peas and beans, with French dressing. Arrange on a dish in four sections, having lettuce for the foundation of each. Cover each vegetable with mayonnaise. Strew the tops of two sections with small pieces of smoked salmon; on a third section strew the sifted yolk of the egg, and on the fourth, the white of the egg, cut rather coarsely. Outline the inner sideof each section with shrimps, by lightly pressing the ends of the shrimps into the mayonnaise. Finish with a tuft of lettuce in the centre of the dish.
In the centre of a flat serving-dish arrange a mound of endive. Peel tomatoes, divide into sections or cut in slices, and arrange these around the endive. Shell cold, hard-boiled eggs; cut in halves, crosswise, and in points; remove the yolks and pound to a paste with an equal amount of the flesh of lobster, shrimp, anchovies or salmon. With this paste, seasoned to taste with oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, fill the cups fashioned from the whites of the eggs, and arrange them around the tomatoes. Strew chopped shallot and sweet pepper over the endive. Mix equal portions of oil and vinegar, add salt and pepper to taste, and pour over the salad. Serve at once.
(For evening company, or fish course at a dinner party.)Ingredients.
Method.—Cut the eggs into halves lengthwise; cut a thin slice from the round ends, that the pieces may be set upright; dip lightly in the gelatine dissolved over hot water, and arrangemirotonfashion around an oval serving-dish. Set aside, that the eggs may become fixed in position. Marinate the vegetables, separately, with French dressing; cook the salmon by the directions previously given; remove the skin and cover the sides with jelly mayonnaise or fancy butter. When cold decorate with whites of eggs and capers. Use the trimmings from the eggs, and fix them in place by dipping in jelly mayonnaise. Set aside for the decorations to become fixed. Drain the vegetables and arrange inside the border, higher in the centre. Lay the decorated slices of fish upon opposite sides of the mound, and serve either with or without mayonnaise.
(For evening company, or fish course at a dinner party.)Ingredients.
Method.—Prepare the eggs and fasten to the plate as in salmon salad. Dip diamond-shapedpieces of pickled beet in the dissolved gelatine and place upon the front and top of each half of egg. Spread the edge of the fish, after removing the skin, with jelly mayonnaise, or green butter, and, when set, decorate with figures cut from the cooked white of an egg. With forcing-bag and tube shape a pattern around the upper edge of the fish. Place the fish in the centre of the crown ormirotonof eggs, with the peas seasoned with French dressing around it; cover the place from which the bone was taken with the centre of a head of lettuce, cut in halves, and two fine olives. Serve with a bowl of mayonnaise.
Seepage 64
Cut cold fish—salmon, halibut, lobster, etc.—into small cubes, mix with one-third in measure of cooked mushrooms, also cut small, and add for each cup of mushrooms and fish one tablespoonful of gherkins cut fine. Season with French dressing and let stand one hour; then drain, and mix with jellied mayonnaise. Fill chilled shells with this preparation, rounding it on the top. Make smooth, and mask with jellied mayonnaise. Decorate with gherkins and the white of a hard-boiled egg cut in fanciful shapes, and with stars of mayonnaise.
Parboil, drain, cool, and wipe dry one quart of oysters. Make a pint of mayonnaise sauce with aspic jelly and coat the well-dried oysters withthe sauce. Prepare a quart of chicken aspic. Dip in half-set aspic the white of egg, poached and cut in fanciful shapes, and small gherkins cut in thin slices, and decorate the bottom and sides of a charlotte or cylindrical mould standing in ice water. Pour in jelly to the depth of half an inch; when set, arrange the oysters on it in a circle, one overlapping another; pour in more jelly, and, when set, dispose upon it another circle of oysters. Continue this order until the mould is filled. When removed from the mould, garnish with chopped aspic and fans cut from gherkins and lettuce. Serve with the remainder of the pint of mayonnaise.
Parboil the oysters (heating them to the boiling-point in their own liquor), drain, and, if large, halve each; marinate with a French dressing (i.e., toss the bits of oyster in oil enough to coat them nicely; then toss them in a little lemon juice, dust with salt and pepper, and set aside to become thoroughly chilled). When ready to serve, drain again and add about one-third as much in bulk of fine-chopped celery and one or two tablespoonfuls of pickled nasturtium seeds or capers; then mix with mayonnaise or a boiled dressing. Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves. Cabbage, sliced as for slaw, may be used in the place of celery. Garnish with small pickles cut in thin slices and spread to resemble a fan.
Cut a pair of cold cooked sweetbreads into cubes. Parboil one pint of oysters, drain, cool, and cut in halves; marinate the sweetbreads and oysters with French dressing, and allow them to stand at least half an hour; drain, mix with mayonnaise, and serve on a bed of lettuce or cress. Or, surround with a circle of chopped cucumbers seasoned with French dressing.
Pare the cucumbers, which should be rather short, and cut them in halves lengthwise; remove the seeds and steam until tender; chill, and arrange on lettuce leaves, or on a bed of watercress. Clean and marinate the shrimps. If large, divide into two or three pieces. Mix with mayonnaise and place in the cucumbers. Decorate with stars of mayonnaise and whole shrimps.
Set a border mould in ice water; dip hard-boiled eggs, cut in halves lengthwise and trimmed to fit the mould, in aspic jelly, and press against the sides of the mould alternately with small vegetable balls, or peas dipped in half-set aspic; fill gradually the empty space in the mould with partly cooled jelly, adding vegetables here and there if desired. Dip in hot water and turn from the mould. Fill in the centre with lettuce, torn in pieces, and one pint ofshrimps, broken in pieces and dressed with French dressing. Smooth the mound and mask with jelly mayonnaise. Decorate with shrimps and small heart leaves of lettuce.
Shell of Fish and Mushrooms.Shell of Fish and Mushrooms.
Seepage 65
Shrimp Salad in Cucumber Boat.Shrimp Salad in Cucumber Boat.
Seepage 67
Decorate the sides of a ring mould, chilled, with hard-boiled eggs cut in halves, alternated with hearts of lettuce cut in halves; dip the egg and lettuce in half-set aspic, and they will adhere to the sides of the mould. Then proceed as above.
Take the shrimps from the shells, reserve the most perfect for garnishing, and break the others into pieces; marinate with French dressing. When ready to serve, drain, and mix with shredded lettuce, or celery cut fine, and mayonnaise. Shape in a mound on a bed of lettuce leaves and mask with mayonnaise. Use capers or olives, chopped very fine, to mark out five or six designs on the mound; a scroll effect is always pretty. Fill in the designs with shrimps and the rest of the mound with capers, sifted yolks or chopped whites of cooked eggs; or fill the designs with the capers or eggs and the rest of the mound with shrimps. Finish with a tuft of lettuce at the top.
Soak the scallops in salted water (a tablespoonful of salt to a quart of water) one hour; rinsein cold water, cover with boiling water, and let simmer five or six minutes. Rinse again in cold water, drain, and when cold cut into slices. Cut white stalks of celery into small pieces. Mix the celery and scallops—half as much celery as scallops—with mayonnaise or boiled dressing, and shape in a mound. Mask the mound with a thin coating of mayonnaise. With large-sized capers outline a design on each of the four sides of the mound, fill these with whites of eggs, cooked and chopped fine. Ornament with figures cut from slices of boiled beets. Fill in the spaces around the designs with capers, and garnish with green celery leaves and white stalks of celery, fringed.
Lay the sardines upon soft paper, that they may be freed from oil. Scrape off the skin and remove the bones; squeeze over them a little lemon juice. Arrange upon a bed of crisp lettuce leaves, or upon shredded lettuce, and dress with either French or mayonnaise dressing. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs cut in slices.
Arrange a pint of cold cooked fish, flaked, on a bed of lettuce leaves and cover with sardine dressing. Carefully split six selected sardines; remove the bones and arrange the halves on the top of the salad, with the heads at the centre. Garnish with slices of lemon.
Shrimp Salad, Border of Eggs in Aspic.Shrimp Salad, Border of Eggs in Aspic.
Seepage 68
Lobster Salad.Lobster Salad.
Skin and bone a dozen sardines and put them in a mortar; remove the shells from an equal number of hard-boiled eggs and cut them into halves crosswise, so as to form cups with pointed edges; put the yolks into the mortar with the sardines, add a tablespoonful, or less, of chopped parsley, a dash of pepper and salt, and work to a smooth paste; moisten with salad dressing and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cut a thin slice from the ends of the egg cups, that they may be set upright on the serving-dish, and fill with the mixture, making it round on the top like a whole yolk. Arrange these on a bed of watercress, or shredded lettuce, and sprinkle plentifully with French dressing.
Cut lobster meat in dice and marinate with French dressing. Keep on ice until ready to serve, then drain carefully. Make cups of the inside leaves of lettuce, put a spoonful of the lobster meat in the centre of each cup, and press mayonnaise dressing through a pastry bag with star tube attached on the top of the lobster in each nest. Or, arrange the lobster in a mound on a bed of lettuce leaves, and mask the mound with mayonnaise. Finish the centre with a little bouquet of the heart leaves of lettuce; sift dried coral in a circle about it, and below that arrange circlesof sifted yolk or chopped white of egg alternately with the coral. Garnish with the fans and feelers of the lobster. Or, arrange as before, then finish the centre with a bouquet of heart leaves of lettuce and the head of the lobster. Garnish with stars of mayonnaise and fans from the tail.
Remove the flesh carefully from the shell of a lobster, so as to keep the shell of body and tail intact; wash and dry the shell and arrange on a bed of lettuce leaves. Marinate the flesh, cut into cubes, with French dressing. After an hour drain, mix with an equal quantity of shredded lettuce, and replace in the shell. Garnish with mayonnaise and the lobster coral. Dry the coral thoroughly, after which it may be passed readily through a sieve.
Ingredients.
Method.—Make a white sauce of the butter, flour, seasonings and milk; add the coral andbutter, after pounding until smooth in a mortar, also the yolk of egg, beaten and diluted with the lemon juice, and the lobster meat chopped rather coarsely. When cold shape into cutlets, dust over with sifted coral, and insert a bit of feeler or claw into the small end of each. Pour a little aspic into a dish, and, when it sets, arrange the cutlets upon it a little distance apart; pour over each a few spoonfuls of aspic, and when set cover with more aspic. When cold and very firm cut out the cutlets, giving a border of aspic to each.
Marinate the flesh of the other lobster, cut into cubes, with French dressing; pile in a mound on a bed of lettuce leaves. Insert a tuft of leaves in the top, and arrange the cutlets against the mound. Garnish with feelers and claws. Serve mayonnaise or sauce tartare with the salad.
Bluefish Salad.Bluefish Salad.
Seepage 75
Litchi Nut and Orange Salad.Litchi Nut and Orange Salad.
Seepage 88
Set a ring mould in ice water. In the bottom of the mould arrange pitted olives or pim-olas an inch apart. Dip figures, cut from slices of royal custard, or from cooked carrot or turnip, into liquid aspic, and place them on the sides of the mould, to which they will adhere; dip large-sized capers (a larding-needle or skewer is of assistance in this work) in aspic and with them ornament the mould; then fill with aspic and set aside to become fixed. When ready to serve, dip the mould in hot water and invert on a serving-dish. Cut the meat from twotwo-pound lobsters into small cubes. Season with French dressing. Fill the open space in the aspic with the salad; garnish the top with the feelers and delicate lettuce leaves, and arrange a wreath of lettuce leaves around the aspic. Stamp out rounds of bread; stamp again with the same cutter to form crescents, spread delicately with butter, and then with caviare seasoned with a few drops of lemon juice, and dispose symmetrically on the lettuce.
Chill timbale moulds in ice water; dip thin slices of gherkins into half-set aspic, and arrange them symmetrically against the sides of the moulds, and brush over the decoration with aspic. Cut the claw meat of a two-pound lobster into small cubes; chop fine, and pound the remaining meat in a mortar; then add to it the liver and fat, and pass through a sieve. There should be about one cup. Simmer the shell in water to cover half an hour. Beat the yolks of three eggs, slightly, with one-fourth a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of paprica; add one cup of the lobster liquor very gradually, and cook over hot water as a boiled custard. Remove from the fire and add one-fourth a package of gelatine, softened in one-fourth a cup of cold lobster liquor, or chicken stock; strain over the sifted lobster meat and stir occasionally over ice water; when it begins to set, add the lobster dice, and fold in carefully one cup of whipped cream.Turn the mixture into the decorated mould, and, when set, turn out on to lettuce leaves. Decorate with the head, feelers and claws of the lobster. Serve with French or mayonnaise dressing. French dressing is preferable with so rich a mixture.
Moulded Salmon Salad.Moulded Salmon Salad.
Seepage 75
Salad of Shrimps and Bamboo Sprouts.Salad of Shrimps and Bamboo Sprouts.
Ingredients.
Method.—If salt anchovies are to be used, soak them in cold water two hours, then drain, dry, and remove skin and bones; divide the flesh into small pieces and squeeze the lemon juice over them. When ready to serve, arrange the lettuce leaves upon a serving-dish, stalk ends at the centre, cut the eggs in slices, mix with the bits of anchovies, and arrange upon the lettuce. Pour a French or mayonnaise dressing made with onion juice, or a sauce tartare, over the salad.
Marinate a cup of shrimps, broken in small pieces, with three tablespoonfuls of oil, one tablespoonful of lemon juice, a dash of salt and pepper. Select the tender bamboo sprouts in a can, and cut them into small pieces of the shape desired. When ready to serve, dress these with salt, pepper, oil,and lemon juice. Use three measures of oil to one of acid. Begin with the oil. Continue mixing and adding oil, until each piece is glossy. Then add the acid. Mix the prepared sprouts and the drained shrimps, and turn them onto a bed of lettuce, cut in narrow shreds, and dressed with oil and acid. Decorate the salad with heart leaves of lettuce, whole shrimps, and hollow sections of bamboo, cut in thin slices.
Separate the remnants of a baked bluefish into flakes, discarding skin and bones. Set aside, covered, until cold. About an hour before serving, sprinkle with salt and pepper and (for a generous pint of fish) the juice of a lemon. When ready to serve, dispose heart leaves of lettuce on the edge of a salad plate, and turn the fish into the centre, letting it come out over the stems of the lettuce leaves. Pour a boiled dressing over the top, and spread evenly (with a silver knife) over the fish. Put a tablespoonful of chopped pickled beet at the stems of each group of leaves, a ring of the beet near the top, and figures, cut from the beet, between.
Use a pound of salmon, fresh-cooked or canned. Remove skin and bone, and pick the flesh fine with a silver fork. Mix half a teaspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of sugar, a teaspoonful of flour, halfa teaspoonful of mustard, and a dash of paprica. Over these pour very gradually three-fourths a cup of hot milk and stir and cook over hot water ten minutes, then add one-fourth a cup of hot vinegar and two tablespoonfuls of butter creamed and mixed with the beaten yolks of two eggs; stir until the egg is set, then add one level tablespoonful of granulated gelatine, softened in one-fourth a cup of cold water, and strain over the salmon; mix thoroughly, and turn into a mould. When chilled serve with Cream Salad Dressing (page 27), to which half a cucumber, chopped fine and drained, has been added. Reserve a part of the dressing, omitting the cucumber, and use with slices of cucumber as a garnish. To prepare the cucumber, pare with a handy slicer and cut from it a section three-fourths an inch thick; pare this round and round very thin and roll loosely to form a cup. Dispose this on the top of the fish and fill with dressing. (Use a pastry bag and tube.) Cut the rest of the cucumber in thin slices.
Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.—Motley.Three several salads have I sacrificed, bedew'd with precious oil and vinegar.—Beaumont and Fletcher.
Arrange the leaves of a head of cabbage lettuce loosely upon a serving-dish, without destroying its shape. Have ready a pair of sweetbreads cooked in salted, acidulated water twenty minutes, and cooled and cut in small cubes and marinated; also the same quantity of cucumber cut in dice, chilled in ice water and dried upon a cloth. Drain the French dressing from the sweetbread and scatter the bits of sweetbread and cucumber through the lettuce. Press three-fourths a cup of firm jelly mayonnaise through a pastry bag with small tube, in little stars, here and there, throughout the lettuce, and serve at once.
Cook, marinate and drain the sweetbreads as before; mix with an equal quantity of cucumber cut in dice, and then with cream dressing. Linethe inner side of lettuce nests with slices of radish, one overlapping another (do not remove the pink skin from the radish). Put in a spoonful of the salad and garnish each nest with a small radish cut to resemble a flower.
Use two parts of cold cooked chicken to one part of celery. Marinate and drain the chicken, add the celery, and mix with mayonnaise or boiled dressing. Arrange the salad in nests of lettuce leaves and put a pim-ola in the centre of each nest.
Prepare the salad as before; dispose in a mound on a bed of lettuce leaves and mask with mayonnaise. By the use of stoned olives, cut in halves, divide the surface into quarters. Fill two opposite sections with whites of eggs chopped fine, a third with capers or olives chopped fine, and the fourth with sifted yolks of eggs. Garnish with lettuce and curled celery.
Cook the meats of English walnuts in well-seasoned chicken stock until tender; remove the brown skin and break in pieces; when cold mix with chicken and celery, and proceed as in preceding recipes. The walnuts give the salad a flavor similar to that produced in France by the use of truffles.
Peel mushroom caps, break in pieces, and sauté in melted butter five or six minutes with a slice of onion; add chicken liquor or hot water and let simmer until tender. Remove from the liquor, cover, and set aside to cool. Add the liquor and the peelings and stalks of the mushrooms to the liquid in which the chicken is to be cooked. Use the chicken and mushrooms with celery or lettuce in any recipe for chicken salad.
Arrange the salad upon the centre of the dish and mask with mayonnaise; then with pastry bag and tube pipe the dressing in some fanciful design. Surround with a border of aspic jelly, tinted a delicate green. The jelly may be cut in blocks or triangles, or into small cubes, and then massed about the salad. Cut the aspic in a cold room; first dip the knife in hot water and wipe dry.
Cut one cucumber and one bunch of round radishes in thin slices, and add two-thirds a cup of shredded celery. Season with four tablespoonfuls of oil, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar or lemon juice, half a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of paprica. Put on a bed of shredded lettuce or on heart leaves of lettuce; cover with three cups of chicken cut incubes and marinated an hour or more with four tablespoonfuls of oil, two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice or vinegar, half a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of white pepper. Mask with mayonnaise. Arrange some bits of celery, an inch and a half in length and curled on one end, about the salad, with a bit of yolk of egg in the centre of each. Or, instead of the celery and yolk of egg, use sliced radishes (do not remove the red skin), having the slices overlap one another. Finish the top with tuft of lettuce or curled celery and yolk of egg.
Bone a chicken, fill with forcemeat, and cook until tender in stock; then press between two dishes until cold. Cut in slices and stamp in rounds. Stamp out an equal number of rounds from cooked tongue. Spread these with "green butter" (seeGreen-Butter Sandwiches) and place the rounds of chicken evenly on the tops. Coat these with white chaud-froid sauce and decorate in some design with truffles, ham or tongue. When the sauce has set, brush over the medallions with aspic jelly, cold but not set. When thoroughly cold stamp out with a round cutter. Drain and dry a can of white button mushrooms; toss them about in cold aspic until they are well coated. When the jelly has become fixed about them, pile high in the centre of a serving-dish; arrange the medallions about them, resting on delicate leaves of lettuce. Serve mayonnaise ortartare sauce with the salad. Sweetbreads may be substituted for the chicken, and fresh mushrooms for the canned.
Scald one cup of milk, cream orwell-reducedchicken stock (the last is preferable); beat the yolks of three eggs slightly, add one-fourth a teaspoonful, each, of common salt and celery salt, and a dash of paprica, and cook as a boiled custard. Remove from the fire and add one-fourth a package of gelatine (one tablespoonful of granulated gelatine), softened in one-fourth a cup of chicken liquor or water. Strain over half a cup of cooked chicken (white meat), chopped and pounded in a mortar and passed through a sieve. Stir over ice water until the mixture is perfectly smooth and begins to set, then fold into it one cup of whipped cream. Turn into a ring mould, and, when chilled and well set, turn on to a bed of lettuce and fill in the centre with equal parts of celery and English walnuts, blanched, sliced and mixed with a French dressing.
The half-cup of chicken, well pressed down, should weigh four ounces. The chicken broth should be strong and well flavored. Either one cup of whipped cream, or one cup of cream, whipped, may be used. The latter gives a firmer mousse, more pronounced in flavor; the former, a mousse of a lighter and more delicate consistency, and one more delicate in flavor.
Mould the mousse in small cups; turn out on to a slice of chilled tomato resting upon a lettuce leaf; garnish with mayonnaise dressing, decorating both the tomato and the mousse.
Mould the mousse in a ring mould and fill in the centre with equal parts of cucumber or asparagus tips and diced sweetbread; marinate the sweetbread with French dressing, and drain thoroughly before mixing with the cucumber or asparagus. Garnish with mayonnaise dressing.
Fill in the centre of the ring with diced cucumbers and sliced radishes, mixed with cream dressing. Garnish with cream dressing, using pastry bag and tube, and radishes cut to resemble roses.
Fill in the centre of the ring with mushrooms and sweetbread dressed with a French dressing. If the button mushrooms (canned) are used, cut in quarters; if fresh mushrooms are at hand, remove the stems and peel the caps; break into pieces and sauté in a little hot butter; then add hot water or stock and let simmer until tender (fifteen or twenty minutes). Drain and chill before using.
Prepare the chestnuts as previously directed, using twice as much turkey meat, light or dark, cut into small cubes. Serve with lettuce and French, boiled or mayonnaise dressing, as desired. Marinate and drain the meat before adding the nuts.
Cut the meat from a duck in small pieces, and slice pim-olas very thin; use two tablespoonfuls of pim-olas to a cup of meat. Serve on a bed of cress with a French dressing.
Slice the oranges lengthwise; use twice as much flesh as fruit. Dress with oil, salt and paprica, and serve on lettuce leaves.
Soak half a tablespoonful of granulated gelatine in one tablespoonful and a half of cold water, and dissolve in three-fourths a cup of hot chicken liquor. Strain over one cup of chopped ham and stir until the mixture begins to thicken, then fold in one cup ofthickcream beaten stiff; add, also, a few grains of paprica and salt, if needed. Mould in a ring mould, and, when set and cold, turn from the mould; fill in the centre with lettuce arranged like a cup, and fill the cup with mayonnaise. Or, serve with French dressing.