  SALADS AND DESSERTS Salads and desserts are sometimes looked upon as luxuries, and something to be omitted where people must exercise strict economy, and as more or less indigestible forms of food to be avoided. As a matter of fact both of these types of dishes are extremely valuable in giving variety to the diet. They may be very inexpensive, and when they have the right relation to the rest of the meal, are not more indigestible than many other forms of food. A heavy salad or rich dessert eaten after a sufficient amount of other food will naturally cause digestive disturbance. To disprove the theory of great cost of desserts, two friends once had an amusing contest to see which could serve the largest number of palatable desserts at the lowest price. It was interesting to see how many could be made for a cost of from six to ten cents for a family of five. Materials used for salad.—The word “salad” is said to be derived from the Latin “salis” (salt) which implies that the salad has been looked upon more or less as a relish. We all associate with a salad appetizing crispness and freshness. The materials used in the modern salad are so varied that a complete list would include nearly all our fruits and vegetables and meat foods. Green vegetables.—Celery, chicory or endive, corn salad, cress, cucumber, dandelion, lettuce, onions, peppers, romaine or cos lettuce, radishes, and tomatoes. Cooked vegetables.—Beans, string and whole, beets, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, and spinach. Fruits uncooked.—Any fresh fruit, possibly with the exception of some of the berries. Meat and poultry.—The white meats like veal, chicken, and turkey are more attractive in salad, but any kind of cold meat may be used. Fish and shellfish.—Lobsters, crabs, scallops, and cold fish. Nuts.—Several kinds may be used in combination with fruit. Jellies.—Tomato jelly, meat, chicken, and fish molded in jelly, may be served as a salad. Eggs.—Hard-boiled eggs are used as a garnish. Cream cheese.—May be served with lettuce. Salad dressings.—Plain lettuce or celery served with salt is in a sense a salad, but it is our custom to dress the lettuce with a mixture which contains an acid and usually an oil. A very simple, old-fashioned form of dressing used in this country is vinegar and sugar. Substitute lemon juice or fresh lime juice for the vinegar and you will have a very refreshing and simple salad for a summer day. The ordinary dressing consists of vinegar or lemon juice, and oil; another form is mayonnaise, where the yolk and sometimes the white of egg are used to hold the oil and vinegar together. Another form is a cooked dressing which may be bottled and kept for a longer time than the French dressing or the mayonnaise. Olive oil.—This is the most delicious oil for salad dressing when the flavor is liked and when it can be afforded. Cottonseed and corn oil.—There are now in the market clarified cottonseed oil and corn oil that may be used in mayonnaise dressing, and the flavor is not unacceptable, and certainly superior to the poorer grades of olive oil which quite likely contain one of these oils as an adulterant. Cottonseed oil makes a better substitute for olive oil then does corn oil as it is at present refined. Butter.—Butter may be used in boiled salad dressing for those who dislike the flavor of the oils. The acids in dressing.—These may be either vinegar or lemon juice, and many people with whom the vinegar disagrees can eat a salad made with lemon juice. The acid should not be used in excess in any case; the best dressings do not give a distinctively acid taste. Adjuncts.—Salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, paprika. Fig. 67.—A cucumber salad. Courtesy of Dept. of Foods and Cookery, Teachers College. GENERAL METHODS AND RECIPESGeneral directions.—The two important points in the preparation of the material for salad are, first, that everything should be thoroughly dry, and, second, thoroughly chilled. The importance of these two points cannot be overemphasized, and they are of equal value in salad making. Many a salad is unpalatable because it is watery and wilted. For the preparation of green vegetables see Chapter VII. Vegetables should be cut in cubes or sometimes in slices. Meat, poultry, and shellfish should be cut in small pieces or chopped. The prepared meat should be mixed with some of Combinations in salad.—Several well-known combinations will at once occur to you. Meat salads usually have a mixture of celery. Several vegetables may be used together, as beans and carrots, or carrots, peas, and string beans with lettuce. Apples, nuts, and celery make a pleasing combination. Indeed there would seem to be no end to the possibilities here. Fig. 68.—A salad with salmon molded in gelatin. Courtesy of Dept. of Foods and Cookery, Teachers College. Serving and garnishing.—The principle here is to make the dish attractive with as little labor as possible. Everything served as a garnish should be eatable. A bed of crisp dry lettuce leaves is the most attractive setting for any salad. When this is not procurable, cress makes an attractive border to a salad. Figure 68 shows you a salmon jelly molded in a ring and attractively served in lettuce. Figure 67 shows a cucumber placed on lettuce leaves, dressed with a French dressing and sprinkled with chopped peppers. The cucumber is sliced ready to serve; the slices being cut not entirely through the cucumber. This is rapidly prepared and 1. French dressing. Ingredients.
Method. Mix the salt, pepper, and vinegar and stir in the olive oil slowly. A few drops of onion juice may be added. 2. Mayonnaise dressing. Ingredients.
Method. Stir together the eggs, mustard, salt, pepper, and sugar. Add the oil, a drop at a time, stirring and beating constantly. The back of a silver fork is a good thing for mixing mayonnaise, though some people prefer a Dover beater. As the dressing becomes very thick it should be thinned occasionally with vinegar and lemon, alternately, but never let it lose its consistency. After the first, the oil may be added more rapidly. All ingredients and utensils must be cold. If the weather is warm, the bowl should be surrounded with ice water. If the dressing should separate, begin with another yolk of egg and stir the separated mixture into it slowly, as before. Set the bowl in a cold place and it should keep for many days. 3. Boiled dressing. Ingredients.
Method. Mix the dry ingredients and beat with the eggs until light. Add the vinegar and water and cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thick and smooth. Remove from the fire, stir in the butter and set away to cool. A little cream added after the dressing cools is a great addition. Sour cream may be used instead of the water, in which case less vinegar and butter should be used. 4. Potato salad. Ingredients.
Method. Cut the cold-boiled or baked potatoes into 1/2-inch cubes. Marinate (i.e. mix and let stand) with French dressing. Chopped parsley or onion juice may be mixed with potatoes. Arrange in a mound and garnish with slices of hard-boiled egg, olives, pickled beets, etc. 5. Chicken salad. Ingredients.
Method. Cut cold-boiled or roast fowl in 1/2-inch cubes. Add to this 1/2 as much celery which has been washed, scraped, and cut into 6. Waldorf salad. Ingredients.
Method. Select tart, juicy apples. Cut in quarters, pare and core and cut in 1/2-inch cubes. Add half as much celery, washed, scraped, and cut into cubes. Mix with boiled or mayonnaise dressing and serve cold on lettuce leaves. If handsome red apples can be had, they may be washed and polished and a slice cut from the stem end and the apple used as a cup after scooping out the inside to use for a filling with the celery. Serve on a lettuce leaf. Chopped nuts may be mixed with the apple and celery if desired. 7. Stuffed tomato salad. Ingredients.
Method. Cover medium sized tomatoes with boiling water for a minute and remove the skin. Cut a thin slice from the top and take out part of the seeds and pulp. Sprinkle inside of the tomato with salt, invert, and let stand one half hour. Fill tomatoes with cucumbers (or celery) cut in small cubes and moistened with mayonnaise dressing. Arrange on lettuce leaves and garnish top with mayonnaise dressing. Laboratory management.—1/2 egg yolk (1 teaspoonful) and 1/4 cup of olive oil is as small a quantity as is practicable to use in making the mayonnaise. This quantity made by groups of two works out well as the process of adding the oil drop by drop is difficult for a beginner working alone. The boiled dressing works in well as a variation of the boiled custard. Desserts The dessert in this country includes the sweet dish, or the fruit at the end of the meal. In simple meals the dessert is usually one of the two, although in more elaborate meals fruit is served after the sweet dish, and sometimes crackers and cheese are served at the last. From the point of view of nutrition and digestibility this is more than is necessary, and you will notice that when both are served, the fruit is often declined. Like the salad, the dessert may be made from a large variety of materials and bears different names. There are hot puddings and cold puddings, pies and tarts, jellies and ices and ice creams. It is very interesting to read over the many dishes of this class in a cookbook and to attempt to classify them. If you are fortunate enough to have access to a cookbook of the eighteenth century, you will find that much labor was given to the preparation of elaborate structures which served as table ornaments; even now you will find French cooks who spend much time in making elaborate displays of their skill. For everyday life the dessert should be attractive to the eye and yet simple. Materials used in desserts. Eggs, milk, and cream; these are important and are used in custards, in dishes stiffened with gelatin or thickened with cornstarch, or in ice cream. Breadstuffs.—Cake and sponge cake, bread crumbs and sliced bread, are valuable in desserts. Bread pudding may be made a very delicious dish. Bread may be combined with fruit in the shape of an escalloped dish. Baking-powder biscuits, crust, and shortcake are also used. Other starchy substances.—These are cornstarch, arrowroot, sago, tapioca and manioca. Fruits.—Raw and cooked fruits of every possible kind. A few fruits like the lemon, orange, grapefruit, and melon are not cooked. For preparing fruit served alone, see Chapter VI. Gelatin.—This material has been mentioned in the chapter on meat. It is prepared for use in desserts in a number of forms, the granular being the most convenient. Gelatin has the property, first, of absorbing water, then of dissolving at the boiling temperature of water and becoming stiff again when cool. After dissolving, as it is cooling and just as it begins to thicken slightly, it can be beaten like white of egg. If beating is attempted while the liquid is warm, or again if it becomes too stiff, the result is not successful. This property makes it useful in the sponges and other fancy desserts where the light spongy texture is desirable. Fig. 69.—A gelatin mold. Courtesy of Dept. of Foods and Cookery, Teachers College. Making desserts attractive.—This is done by serving hot desserts in a dish around which a napkin may be folded; and cold desserts, especially those made with gelatin, may be molded in some attractive form and garnished. Figure 69 shows a very simple gelatin dessert garnished with candied cherries and a little angelica, the stem of a plant which has been sugared, and the whole surrounded with whipped cream. 1. Boiled custard. Ingredients.
Method. Put the milk, sugar, and salt in a double boiler to scald. Separate the eggs and set the whites in a cold place until wanted. Beat the yolks until lemon-colored. Pour a little of the scalded milk on the yolks of the eggs, stirring until well mixed. Set the double boiler back on the stove and pour the egg and milk mixture slowly into the rest of the scalded milk, stirring constantly until thickened enough to coat the spoon. Remove from the fire, add the flavoring, and turn into a dish to cool. Just before serving beat the whites to a very stiff froth and pile by spoonfuls on the custard. The whites may be sweetened with powdered sugar after beating if desired. Corn starch may be used, and fewer eggs. 2. Baked custard. Ingredients.
Method. Scald the milk, sugar, and salt together. Beat the eggs in a baking dish and pour the scalded milk over them. Add the flavoring and stir well. Set the baking dish in a pan of boiling water and bake in a moderate oven until a knife thrust into the custard will come out clean. Serve cold either plain, or with chocolate sauce. Nutmeg may be grated on top of the custard before baking, or caramel flavoring may be added in place of the vanilla. 3. Chocolate sauce. Ingredients.
Method. Mix the chocolate, boiling water, and sugar together and stir over the fire until smooth and thick. Add the cream and serve hot. 4. Caramel flavoring. Ingredients.
Method. Pour the sugar into a saucepan and stir over the fire until it becomes a thick brown sirup. Pour the boiling water on this and leave on the fire, stirring occasionally until the sugar is all dissolved. This may be bottled and kept for some time. 5. Shortcake. Ingredients.
Method. Mix dry ingredients and cut butter into this mixture with two knives. Stir in the milk and spread the mixture out on a buttered layer cake tin. Bake in a hot oven until brown. Wash and hull a box of strawberries, sprinkle with 1/2 cup of sugar, and crush with a spoon. When the shortcake is done remove from the pan, cut around the edge with a sharp knife and right through the center of the cake, making two layers of it. Spread the lower layer with butter and then with the crushed strawberry. Replace the top layer and serve hot. Fresh peaches, preserves, or a mixture of orange and banana may be used for this shortcake. Another kind of strawberry cake is made of sponge cake, and served cold with whipped cream. 6. Steamed pudding. Ingredients.
Method. Skin, wash, and chop the suet, and dredge with flour. Wash, pick over and seed the dried fruit, slice the citron if it is used, and dredge all with flour. Stir together the milk and molasses, sift the dry ingredients with the flour, and stir the liquid into the flour slowly. Add the suet, beating the mass thoroughly, and last the fruit, sprinkling in both the suet and the fruit as you stir. Fill a greased mold 2/3 full, close tightly, and cook in a kettle of boiling water for three hours. Serve with a hard or foamy sauce. Laboratory management.—This can be made in class if each pupil will bring an empty baking powder or cocoa tin to school. A strip of greased cloth should be fastened around the edge of the cover. The recipe can be made in 1/4 cup proportions, and this amount can be cooked if the class period is two hours in length, but it is better to have the cooking finished at home. This is a seasonable exercise at Thanksgiving or Christmas. 7. Brown Betty or apple scallop. Ingredients.
Teacher’s Note.—Individual shortcakes may be made by using a stiffer dough and rolling and cutting them like biscuits. Method. Put a layer of buttered crumbs in a baking dish. Pare and slice tart cooking apples and put a layer into the dish. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and a little water. Add a layer of bread crumbs and repeat with apples, flavoring and cover the top with crumbs. Bake in a moderate oven until apples are cooked and crumbs brown. Any fruit such as peaches or blueberries may be used instead of apples. Serve hot with hard or foamy sauce or cold with cream and sugar, or the bread may be used in slices, buttered. 8. Hard sauce. Ingredients.
Method. Cream the butter; add sugar gradually, and flavoring. Grate nutmeg over the top. Chill before serving. 9. Foamy sauce. Ingredients.
Method. Cream the butter, add gradually the sugar, the egg well beaten, and vanilla. Beat while heating over hot water. 10. Tapioca cream. Ingredients.
Method. Minute tapioca needs no soaking. If pearl tapioca is used, it must be soaked one hour in cold water to cover. Pick over and wash the tapioca, drain off the water and add tapioca to the milk and salt scalded in the double boiler, and cook until the tapioca is transparent, or about 1/2 hour. Beat eggs and add the sugar to them. Combine mixtures by pouring a little of the hot mixture in the egg and then stirring this into the mixture remaining in the double boiler. Stir over fire until it becomes thick. Add the flavoring and pour into a dish to cool. 11. Apple tapioca. Ingredients.
Method. Cook the tapioca in salt water until it becomes transparent. Core and pare the apples and place in the bottom of the baking dish. Fill the cavities with sugar and add a little lemon peel. Pour the tapioca over the apples and bake in a moderate oven until the apples are soft. Serve cold with sugar and cream. 12. Lemon jelly. Ingredients.
Method. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 20 minutes. Add the boiling water and sugar and stir until it dissolves. Add the lemon 13. Snow pudding. Ingredients.
Method. Mix as for lemon jelly. Set aside in a cool place, and as soon as it becomes sirupy stir occasionally until quite thick. Then beat with wire spoon or whisk until frothy. Fold in the beaten whites, and continue to beat lightly until quite stiff. Pile by spoonfuls on a plate and serve with boiled custard, or mold as in Fig. 69. Frozen mixtures.—There are some interesting principles to note here. The freezing is accomplished by using a mixture of chopped ice and rock salt. Can you explain how this reduces the temperature? Another interesting point is this: Have you ever seen a milk bottle on a cold winter morning with the paper cover or even the metal cap pushed up, the frozen milk standing high above the top of the bottle? What does this suggest to you in connection with the filling of the ice cream freezer? It must be noted, too, that a larger amount of flavoring material is needed in a frozen dessert than in one that is not. The frozen custard, for instance, needs more vanilla than one prepared in the ordinary manner. Can you account for this? Method. Make a custard of milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Add cream, chill and freeze. 16. Milk sherbet. Ingredients.
Method. Mix juice and sugar, stirring constantly while slowly adding milk. If the mixture should curdle, this will disappear when frozen. 17. Raspberry ice. Ingredients.
Method. Make a sirup by boiling water and sugar twenty minutes, add raspberry juice, strain and freeze. Any fruit juice may be used for this sherbet. 18. Strawberry mousse. Ingredients.
Method. Wash and hull berries, sprinkle with sugar, and let stand one hour; mash and rub through a fine sieve, add the gelatin soaked in cold water and dissolved in hot water. Set in a pan of ice water and stir until it begins to thicken; then fold in the whipped cream, put into a mold, cover, pack in two parts ice to one of salt, and let stand four hours. Use a mold with EXERCISES1. Explain the value of salads and desserts in the dietary. 2. What are the important points in a good salad? 3. Give a number of agreeable combinations of material in a salad. 4. What are the substitutes for olive oil? 5. Why should mayonnaise dressing be kept cold in the mixing? 6. Make a classification of the different types of dessert. 7. What is gelatin, and why is it useful in desserts? 8. What are the underlying principles of custard making? 9. Why is it important that the can in a freezer should not be filled to the top? 10. Why does chopped ice and salt freeze the mixture? 11. Estimate the cost of the following dishes for five people: Potato salad with boiled dressing; a baked custard; a Brown Betty; French ice cream; raspberry or lemon ice. 12. Explain what is meant by garnishing. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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