Practical home cookery

In dressing mixed salads the variety of recipes is almost innumerable. Yolks of hard-boiled eggs are mixed up with a little milk, and when cream is liked and yet cannot be obtained, this is a very good substitute. Of course, in winter the choice of salad is limited, though of late years it is possible to obtain French lettuces nearly all the year round. Still, a very nice salad can be made from mixed endive, beetroot, and celery, which can be dressed in any of the ways I have mentioned. An exceedingly nice salad can be formed from mixed boiled vegetables, the most important ones being cauliflower, French beans, peas, summer cabbage, and new potatoes ; a little chopped parsley and young onions should be added, and the salad dressed exactly similar to the potato salad. A variety of herbs are used abroad for salads which are not often used in this country, the chief being dandelion-leaves. These herbs, however, are difficult to obtain except in the neighbourhood of Soho, where a knowledge of French is requisite in addition, in order for you to obtain exactly what you want ; and as there are herbs closely resembling those used, some of which are absolutely poisonous, caution should be used by amateur herbalists. The fact, however, remains that French peasants would gather a delicious salad from our ditches, whereas the only creature in the country sufficiently educated to appreciate these delicacies at present is the British pig. By far the best form of sauce for salads is mayonnaise sauce, especially when the salads consist of some green vegetable, such as lettuce, mixed with meat or fish. For instance, we can have chicken salad, lobster salad, or salmon salad, etc. Now with salad of this description no sauce can approach, either in appearance or flavour, the mayonnaise sauce. As I have already given full instructions as to the best method of preparing this sauce, in the chapter entitled “ How to Make Dishes Look Nice,” I will briefly remind you that the one great secret in getting the sauce thick is to drop the oil on the yolk of egg very slowly, drop by drop at starting, and also not to put the vinegar in the basin with the yolk at the commencement, as is often erroneously taught. By dropping the oil one drop at a time, and by patiently beating up the yolk of egg, the sauce will gradually assume the form of custard, and by adding more oil, and continuing the beating, can be made as firm as butter. A little salt and white pepper and French white-wine vinegar can then be carefully added ; but it will be often found best to defer adding the pepper, salt, and vinegar till the salad is all mixed up together. As mayonnaise is, when properly made, a firm sauce, it is particularly useful in masking over salads, thereby rendering them very ornamental dishes. For instance, suppose you have a few slices of smoked salmon — and smoked salmon, lettuce (especially small French ones), and mayonnaise sauce make one of the nicest salads that can be got — the following is the best method of preparing a really ornamental dish : — Pile the lettuce up in the centre of the dish as high as possible.