The housekeeper's guide to preserved meats, fruits, vegetables, &c

At the same time it should be beaten with a fork. Gradually, as more oil is added, the sauce becomes thicker and thicker. The oil should be added, as we have said, till the sauce is as thick as ordinary butter in warm weather. Cooks will often find it impossible to get the sauce sufficiently thick. However, a great deal of trouble in making it can be saved by buying the sauce ready made, as supplied by Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell. To make mayonnaise salad proceed as follows : — First take two or three nice fresh French lettuces, trim away all the withered leaves, and if possible avoid washing them at all ; it is far better to avoid washing them. So far as them itself is concerned, it is crisper when unwashed. Should, however, the cook have any suspicion that there are any ova of insects on them, of course the lettuces should be washed. The washed lettuce should be placed in a wire basket, and this wire basket should be slung to shake the drops of water from the lettuce. Next pile up the lettuce leaves in the centre of the dish, of course a silver dish being the best for the purpose. Then take the meat of a tinned lobster, dry the meat in a cloth, and place it on the top of the lettuce. Next take some good thick mayonnaise sauce and mask the whole surface of the lobster with it. Next, if possible, procure a little lobster coral, and sprinkle a little of the coral over the white sauce, as well as a little finely-chopped green parsley. These little specks of red and green on the white look very pretty. Next take about a teaspoonful of capers, dry them in a cloth, and stick them in the sauce at intervals of about an inch apart. Then take three or four anchovies and fillet them (see Anchovies, to Fillet), and make a trellis-work round the base of the salad on the white sauce with the filleted anchovies. Next take two hardboiled eggs, which should be allowed to get cold, cut them in quarters, and place them round the base. Also round the base put a dozen or more stoned olives. If the mayonnaise sauce used has been prepared by Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell, no vinegar need be added, but if the mayonnaise sauce is home-made, a little tarragon vinegar should be added to it after it is made. If the cook has by her some of that very useful substance known as lobster butter, a little of the mayonnaise sauce can be coloured red with it, and the cook can thus exercise her ingenuity in ornamenting the salad with the red and white sauce, which can be placed in stripes. Mayonnaise sauce can also be coloured green by the addition of Breton’s vegetable colouring. When lobster coral cannot be obtained, a very good substitute to make the little red specks to be sprinkled over the sauce can be obtained by taking some fine bread-crumbs, about the size of the coral. A very small quantity will be enough — half a teaspoonful would be plenty. Place them in a saucer with two or three drops of cochineal, and shake them. The cochineal will turn the bread-crumbs a deep red colour, and it is almost impossible to distinguish these red bread-crumbs from lobster coral itself. Another good addition to mayonnaise salad, made from tinned lobster, is to place some slices of cucumber round the base. The cucumber should of course be peeled, and the slices cut very thin. Another very nice addition is some sliced gherkins.