In an English book is told a story of a famous French salad-dresser who began very poor, and made a fortune by dressing salad for dinners in London. He would go from one place to another in his carriage, with a liveried servant, and his mahogony case. This case contained all the necessaries for his business, such as differently perfumed vinegars, oils with or without the taste of fruit, soy, caviar, truffles, anchovies, catchup, gravy, some yolks of eggs, etc. I confess to a lively curiosity as to how these perfumed and scientific mixtures would taste; however, we will be satisfied with the hundred and one ways of arranging our simple and delicious salads, within the comprehension of all.

A Frenchman thinks he can not eat his dinner without his salad. It would be well if every one had the same appreciation of this most wholesome, refreshing, and at the same time most economical dish. It is an accomplishment to know how to dress a salad well, which is especially prized by the fashionable world. The materials used for salads are generally those shown in the list on the following page:

Lettuce, Celery, Endive, Garden-cress, Sorrel,

Onions, Garlic, Radishes, Beet-root, Pepper-grass,

Cold boiled potatoes, Cabbage, Cives, Tarragon, Nasturtium blossoms;

or salads of mixed vegetables (salades en macÉdoine), selected from this list of vegetables:

Cold boiled potatoes, String-beans, Navy-beans, Lima beans, Beet-root,

Olives, Tomatoes, Pease, Cauliflower, Asparagus-tops,

Cucumbers, Carrots, Truffles, Turnips.

Salads are also made of cold boiled fowls or fish, as follows:

Chickens, Lobster,

Salmon, Prawns,

Shrimps, Sardines.

There are two kinds of dressing which are the best and oftenest used: the Mayonnaise and the French dressing. Epicures prefer the simple French dressing for salads served without fish or fowl. For chicken and fish salads, and some vegetables, as tomatoes and cauliflowers, they use the Mayonnaise sauce. This arrangement of dressings is almost universal in London and Paris. In America we use the Mayonnaise for all salads. I prefer the foreign custom. The simple salad with the French dressing is, after all, the most refreshing and satisfactory, if one has a heavy dinner served before it. The receipts are as follows:

Mayonnaise Sauce.

Put the uncooked yolk of an egg into a cold bowl; beat it well with a silver fork; then add two salt-spoonfuls of salt, and one salt-spoonful of mustard powder; work them well a minute before adding the oil; then mix in a little good oil, which must be poured in very slowly (a few drops at a time) at first, alternated occasionally with a few drops of vinegar. In proportion as the oil is used, the sauce should gain consistency. When it begins to have the appearance of jelly, alternate a few drops of lemon-juice with the oil. When the egg has absorbed a gill of oil, finish the sauce by adding a very little pinch of Cayenne pepper and one and a half tea-spoonfuls of good vinegar; taste it to see that there are salt, mustard, cayenne, and vinegar enough. If not, add more very carefully. These proportions will suit most tastes; yet some like more mustard and more oil. Be cautious not to use too much cayenne.

By beating the egg a minute before adding the oil, there is little danger of the sauce curdling; yet if, by adding too much oil at first, it should possibly curdle, immediately interrupt the operation. Put the yolks of one or two eggs on another plate; beat them well, and add the curdled Mayonnaise by degrees, and finish by adding more oil, lemon-juice, vinegar, salt, and cayenne according to taste. If lemons are not at hand, many use vinegar instead.

Delmonico uses four yolks of eggs for two quart-bottles of oil. It is only necessary, then, to use one yolk for a pint of oil, the egg only being a foundation for the sauce. It is easier, however, to begin with more yolks: many use three of them for a gill of oil. The sauce will not curdle so easily if the few drops of vinegar are used at first, after a very little oil is used. It keeps perfectly well by putting it into a glass preserve or pickle bottle, with a ground-glass stopper. It is well to have enough made to last a week at least. The opportunity of making it may be taken, and adding it to the Mayonnaise bottle, when there are extra yolks left, after the whites of the eggs are used for other purposes, such as white cake, corn-starch pudding, etc.

It requires about a quarter of an hour to make this sauce. In summer, the process of making it is greatly facilitated by placing the eggs and oil in the ice-chest half an hour before using them. Sometimes, for the sake of a change, the Mayonnaise sauce is made green. It is then called

Sauce À la Ravingote.

Here is CarÊme’s receipt for it: “Take a good handful of chervil, together with some tarragon, and a few cives. When these herbs have been washed, put them into boiling water for five or six minutes, with a little salt; after which, cool, drain, and squeeze them dry. Pound them well, adding a spoonful of Mayonnaise sauce; then pass the whole through a sieve, and mix with the Mayonnaise sauce. If you find it too pale a green, add a little spinach prepared in the same way.”

It is more convenient and simple to add boiled and mashed green pease to the sauce for coloring. The green Mayonnaise is sometimes used to spread over a cold boiled fish (marinated). The dish is garnished with lettuce heads. Sometimes, for lobster or fish salads, the Mayonnaise sauce is prepared red.

Red Mayonnaise Sauce.

Pound some lobster coral, pass it through a sieve, and mix it with the Mayonnaise sauce.

French Dressing.

Ingredients: One table-spoonful of vinegar, three table-spoonfuls of olive-oil, one salt-spoonful of pepper, one salt-spoonful of salt, one even tea-spoonful of onion scraped fine. Many use tarragon vinegar, i. e., vinegar in which tarragon has been soaked.

Pour the oil, mixed with the pepper and salt, over the salad; mix them together; then add the vinegar and mix again. Chaptal says: “It results, from this process, that there can never be too much vinegar: from the specific gravity of the vinegar compared with the oil, what is more than needful will fall to the bottom of the salad-bowl. The salt should not be dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more equally distributed through the salad.”

This is the usual mode of mixing the salad; but I prefer to mix the pepper and salt, then add the oil and onion, and then the vinegar; and, when well mingled, to pour the mixture over the salad, or place the salad over it, and mix all together. It seems to me to be more evenly distributed in this manner.

Many different combinations can be made to suit the fancy, from the list of salad materials. I will give certain combinations oftenest seen. It must be remembered that salad is never good unless perfectly fresh. It should not be mixed, or brought into the dining-room, until the moment when it is to be eaten.

When preparing lettuce salad, choose the crisp, tender, centre leaves of head lettuce. The kind seen in England and France, called romaine, is now much used in New York; it is very crisp and tender. The seeds of this lettuce can be obtained in New York. In the East, tarragon, and endive also, are largely produced, and used to imitate these foreign salads. The tarragon leaves are chopped fine, and mixed in the French dressing (without onion) to use with lettuce. The taste for tarragon is generally an acquired one: I prefer the tarragon vinegar to the fresh leaves, as it has only a slight flavor of the plant.

COMBINATIONS.

1. Lettuce (French Cook).

Rub garlic in the dish in which lettuce, with French dressing (without onion), is to be served. Leave no pieces of the garlic—merely rubbing the dish will give flavor enough. The French often use garlic in salads. I would advise, however, the use of the simple French dressing with onion to be mixed with the lettuce leaves, and dispense with the garlic. Use the plain or the tarragon vinegar. Nasturtium blossoms have a most pleasant piquant flavor, and make a beautiful garnish for a salad.

2.

Lettuce, with water-cresses or pepper-grass mixed, and small radishes placed around for a garnish. French or Mayonnaise dressing.

3.

Lettuce, with cives mixed, and olives placed around for garnish. French dressing.

4.

Lettuce, with celery mixed (most excellent). Cut the celery into pieces, an inch and a half long; then slice these lengthwise into four or five pieces. Mix with lettuce. French dressing.

5.

Lettuce and sorrel mixed. French dressing.

6.

Lettuce, with anchovies (cut into thin strips as celery) and chopped cives. To vary this dish, prawns and shrimps are used for a garnish; or the anchovies may be left out. French dressing.

7.

Endive alone. French dressing.

8.

Endive, mixed with water-cress. French dressing.

9.

Endive, with celery, beets, and hard-boiled eggs in slices. French dressing. Endive in centre, row of eggs around, then row of beets, then an edge of fringed celery.

10.

Water-cress is good mixed with cold boiled beets. Cut the beets into little dice; garnish with olives. French dressing.

11.

Lettuce and dice of cold boiled potatoes, and cold boiled beets. Potatoes piled in the centre, beets next, and lettuce around the edge of the dish. French dressing.

12. Potato Salad.

New small onions sliced, mixed with cold boiled potatoes cut into dice. French dressing. This potato salad is very nice.

Another way is to rub the dish with garlic in which the salad is made. Mix chopped parsley with the potatoes cut into dice. French dressing.

13.

Sliced cucumbers, and sliced new onions. French dressing.

14.

Cabbage alone, with French or Mayonnaise dressing.

15. Cold Slaw.

Cut the cabbage not too fine; sprinkle pepper and salt over it, and set it on ice, or in a cool place, to keep it crisp.

Dressing.—Beat the yolks of three eggs, or the whole of two eggs, with five table-spoonfuls of good strong vinegar, two heaping tea-spoonfuls of sugar (three, if the vinegar is very strong), half a tea-spoonful of made mustard, and butter size of an almond. Put these ingredients into a tin cup, and stir them over the fire until they are about to boil, or until they become a smooth paste. Put the mixture one side to become cold, and to remain until just before it is wanted at table; then mix it well with the cold cabbage, and garnish the top with slices of hard-boiled egg.

Cold slaw is especially nice served with fried oysters. Place it in the centre of the warm platter on a folded napkin (a too warm platter would injure it), then make a circle of fried oysters around it. This makes a nice course for dinner.

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The salads of vegetables are generally better with the French dressing. They present a better appearance by cutting them with a small vegetable-cutter,

16. Salad of Vegetables (Salade de LÉgumes).

Mix cold boiled pease, string-beans, pieces of cauliflower, asparagus-tops, or almost any one of the small vegetables; do not cut the larger ones too fine. French dressing.

17.

Cold boiled potatoes, Lima beans, beets, carrots. French dressing.

18.

Cold baked navy beans, with Mayonnaise sauce.

19. Mayonnaise of Cauliflower.

Place some cauliflowers into just enough boiling water to cover them; add a little salt and butter to the water. When cooked, let them become cold; then season them with a marinade of a little salt and pepper, three spoonfuls of vinegar, and one spoonful of oil. Let them then remain for an hour. When ready to serve, pile them on the dish to a point; then mask them with a Mayonnaise sauce.

CarÊme finishes this dish by placing around it a border of croÛtons of aspic jelly. I can not think that aspic jelly is good enough to pay for the trouble of making it, and I am a particular advocate for dishes that taste well. GouffÉ arranges around the dish a border of carrots, beets, turnips, or any green vegetables which have been marinated.

20. Tomatoes À la Mayonnaise.

This is a truly delicious dish; it would, in fact, be good every day during the tomato season.

Select large fine tomatoes and place them in the ice-chest; the colder they are, the better, if not frozen; skin them without the use of hot water, and slice them, still retaining the form of the whole tomato. Arrange them in uniform order on a dish, with a spoonful of Mayonnaise sauce thick as a jelly on the top of each tomato. Garnish the dish with leaves of any kind. Parsley is very pretty.

Some marinate the tomato slices, i. e., dip them into a mixture of three spoonfuls of vinegar to one spoonful of oil, pepper, and salt; and then, after draining well, mix them in the Mayonnaise sauce.

String-beans in Salad (French Cook).

String the beans and boil them whole; when boiled tender, and they have become cold, slice them lengthwise, cutting each bean into four long slices; place them neatly, the slices all lying in one direction, crosswise on a platter. Season them an hour or two before serving, with a marinade of a little pepper, salt, and three spoonfuls of vinegar to one spoonful of oil. Just before serving, drain from them any drops that may have collected, and carefully mix them with a French dressing. This makes a delicious salad.

Chicken Salad.

Boil a young tender chicken, and when cold separate the meat from the bones; cut it into little square blocks or dice; do not mince it. Cut white tender stalks of celery into about three quarter-inch lengths, saving the outside green stalks for soups; mix the chicken and celery together; and then stir well into them a mixture in the proportion of three table-spoonfuls of vinegar to one table-spoonful of oil, with pepper, salt, and a little mustard to taste. Put this aside for an hour or two, or until just before serving; this is called marinating the chicken; it will absorb the vinegar, etc. When about to serve, mix the celery and chicken with a Mayonnaise sauce, leaving a portion of the sauce to mask the top. Reserve several fresh ends or leaves of celery with which to garnish the dish. Stick a little bouquet of these tops in the centre of the salad, then a row of them around it. From the centre to each of the four sides sprinkle rows of capers. Sometimes slices or little cut diamonds of hard-boiled eggs are used for garnishing.

Chicken salad is often made with lettuce instead of celery. Marinate the chicken alone; add it to the small tender leaves (uncut) of the lettuce the last moment before serving; then pour Mayonnaise dressing over the top. Garnish with little centre-heads of lettuce, capers, cold chopped red beets if you choose, or sliced hard-boiled eggs. Sometimes little strips of anchovy are added for a garnish. When on the table it should all be mixed together. Many may profit by this receipt for chicken salad; for it is astonishing how few understand making so common a dish. It is generally minced, and mixed with hard-boiled eggs, etc., for a dressing.

Chicken Salad (CarÊme’s Receipt).

Take some tender pullets; fry them in the sautÉ pan, or roast them; when cold, cut them up, skinning and trimming them neatly. Put the pieces into a tureen, with some salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, some sprigs of parsley, and an onion cut into slices; mix all well together; cover, and let stand for some hours; then, just before serving, drain the salad, taking care to remove all bits of onion, etc., and place it tastefully on lettuce-leaves, with the hearts of the lettuce on top, and cover with a Mayonnaise dressing.

Mayonnaise of Salmon.

Remove the skin and bones from a piece of salmon, boiled and cooled, and cut it into pieces two inches long. Marinate them, i. e., place them in a dish, and season them with salt, pepper, a little oil, and, in this case, plenty of vinegar, some parsley, and a little onion cut up; then cover, and let them stand two or three hours. In the mean time, cut up some hard-boiled eggs into four or eight pieces for a border. Cover the bottom of the salad-dish with lettuce-leaves, seasoned with a French dressing; place your salmon slices in a ring on the lettuce, pouring in the centre a Mayonnaise sauce. Sprinkle capers over the whole.

Other kinds of fish, such as pike, blue-fish, and flounders, make very good salads, arranged in the same way. CarÊme, GouffÉ, and Francatelli fry their fish and fowl in a sautÉ pan, instead of boiling them. If you do not make use of remnants of salmon left from the table, you can form better-shaped slices by cutting the fish into little shapes before it is boiled. If you wish to boil them, immerse them in warm water (with vinegar and salt added) in a wire basket, or drainer.

Salad À la Filley.

Ingredients: Cottage cheese, hard-boiled egg, cives.

Arrange cives on a salad-dish in such a manner as to form a nest; put into the nest whole hard-boiled eggs (shelled), one for each person at table, alternated with little round cakes of cottage cheese. In serving, place upon each plate an egg, a cake of cottage cheese, and some of the cives. Each person cuts all together, and puts on the French dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper and salt.

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