Cassell's dictionary of cookery

A very little practice, however, will be sufficient to put a plain ornamental border round a ham. My own experience is as follows. I practised on a clean, black, shiny tea-tray, as then the lard, which of course hardens as it falls, could be scraped up with a knife (an ivory paper knife is best), re-melted, and really used for the ham. On the occasion of a birthday or Christmas-time, a suitable device, such as " Many happy returns of the day," or " A Merry Christmas," can be written in the centre of the ham, and a border placed round the edge. A paper frill tied on to the bone, and plenty of fresh parsley round the dish, will always ensure an inviting appearance. One of the prettiest and most usefid garnishes for cold dishes is beetroot, especially for any white kind of dishes. Take, for instance, that exceedingly handsome dish when properly prepared — a salad mayonnaise. First prepare the sauce, taking care to make it sufficiently thick, so that it can be used to mask or cover an uneven surface. It will be found best, in making mayonnaise sauce, to commence by adding the oil drop by drop on the yolk or yolks of eggs alone; do not put in the pepper and salt or vinegar till after it has got quite thick. Indeed, it will be generally found best in making an ornamental salad of any description to reserve the pepper and salt till the whole salad is mixed up together. Having, by beating the oil and egg well together, got the sauce as thick almost as butter in summer time, arrange the salad as follows : — First pile the lettuce-leaves into a pyramid shape, with the cut lobster inside, supposing the salad to be a lobster one : if you have a lettuce with a Ixii cassell's dictionary op cookery. good round heart to it, reserve the heart, cutting the stalk flat, so as to make it stand upright. This heart, if you like, can be placed on the top as an ornament, as it is green, or can itself be masked over with mayonnaise sauce. Next cover the pyramid completely over with the mayonnaise sauce, and place the heart of the lettuce, also covered, we will suppose, on the top of the pyramid. Next arrange the small red legs of the lobster round the base of the pyramid as garnish. Next take some coarsely-chopped parsley, and place little specks of green alternately with little specks of lobster coral over the white pyramid, the distance between these bright-green and red spots being about half an inch. Place also a few bright-green capere on the top and round the base of the pyramid. Inside the bend of the legs should be placed hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters, stoned olives, filleted and washed anchovies, and a few capers. Should you have a good-sized silver dish, place, if possible, a small red crayfish in each corner, with its small claws stretched out. There are few dishes that repay the trouble of ornamenting more than lobster salads, especially for occasions such as wedding breakfasts or suppers. When you have a lobster salad, the red beetroot garnish is unnecessary. But suppose the salad mayonnaise is a salmon mayonnaise, or a chicken or turbot mayonnaise, beetroot will here take the place of the red lobster legs and the red coral. Red strips of beetroot can be placed in a sort of trelliswork round the base of the salad, and small specks of red beetroot can be placed on the white sauce alternately with the specks of gi-een parsley.