Cookery and housekeeping

Some slices of cold potato and of green chilies, half as many slices of beetroot, and twice as many slices of cucumber ; two teaspoonsful of vinegar, or, better still, a small ladleful of mint sauce, three tablespoonsful of oil, and frtsh lettuces enough to take up so much oil. 156 WINTER SALAD. Potato and Truffle Salad : called a la Demidoff. Rub the bowl with oil. Lay a row of slices of cold potato (the best potatoes are those that were done in the oven), and then a row of slices of truffle, cut very thin. The best truffles are those that have been cooked in white wine and allowed to get cold. Alternate layers of these should finish by one of truffles. Put all round tiny white onions and stoned olives, and work the whole up with oil and vinegar, or oil and white wine. This salad, unlike a lettuce salad, is the better for being left for two hours in the pantry. Winter Salad. Do not boil the potatoes for this dish, but bake or roast them. Cut them into pieces, not slices, and water them well, while still warm, with red wine. Let them get quite cold. Then add some celery and beetroot, or some tomatoes cut into slices, and give very little vinegar, but plenty of salt and of oil. Work all together. Jardiniere Salad. Cut into fine slips, as if for a Julienne soup, carrots, beetroot, turnips, potatoes ; add haricots, green peas, and lentils. Boil them with a little butter in the water, and let them become cold. Put some oil or some Mayonnaise sauce in the salad dish, add a pinch of cayenne pepper, salt, and a spoonful of mustard, BEETROOT. 357 and work all together with a dessert-spoonful of vinegar. Cucumbers. When sliced up they ought to be sprinkled with a little salt, and left to drip out their moisture for two hours. Lay the slices on a fine clean towel, and dry them before seasoning. Cucumber Salad. Choose a young tender cucumber ; peel it and take out the seeds ; cut it in slices and lay them in a dish, scattering a little fine salt over them. At the end of a quarter of an hour drain out the water, and serve them with a dressing of oil and vinegar, pepper, salt, and a pinch of parsley chopped fine. Beetroot. Wash, but do not scrape or touch with a knife, or the colour will be lost. Boil for two hours ; or, which is better, bake till tender, five or six hours. Let the beetroot get cold, cut in slices a quarter of an inch thick, range in a circle on a dish. Boil and cut up a Portugal onion, chop up and put in the centre ; make a salad dressing with oil and vinegar (proportion three measures of oil to one of vinegar), pepper and salt ; and serve as salad. N.B. It is a mistake to mix beetroot with lobster salad ; the sweet flavour of beet does not harmonise with lobster or prawn. 358 • POTATO SALAD. Potato Salad. Take cold potatoes, cut them in slices, and, if cucumbers are in season, slices of cucumber previously drained of their water. Arrange in a circle, in alternate slices ; make a salad dressing with oil, vinegar, fine herbs, pepper and salt, and pour it over the potatoes. Slices of beetroot, or of Portugal onions, may be used instead of cucumber. Celery and Truffles.