Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Arrange in a tasty way, in the centre of a deep dish, a pile of cold cauliflower, delicate cabbage, asparagus tops, sea-kale, green pease, kidneybeans, artichoke bottoms, or whatever happens to be in season. A variety is advantageous. When nicely packed together, pour over the whole a French salad dressing, and have a table-spoonful of capers, pickled nasturtium buds, of chopped gherkins thrown into it. As a final decoration, shred very finely over the surface a few fresh leaves of lettuce, so as to conceal what lies beneath them. Cold fowl or game, cold roast veal or other meat, crab, lobster, or any kind of cold fish may also be used in this salad. Fish Salads. See Fish. Fruit Salad. — Divide one large orange and two mandarins into carpels, slice two bananas, shred a small pineapple, peel and seed two dozen Malaga grapes, and shell and halve a dozen English walnuts. Heap all upon crisp, delicate leaves from the heart of lettuce, and pour over them a mayonnaise dressing. Serve very cold, almost frappe. Fruit Salad (with whipped cream). — Select the smallest pineapples, cut them one-third from the top, and scoop them out almost entirely. Peel three nectarine oranges, remove all the thin skins, and with a sharp knife cut them in small pieces. Peel and cut in small slices four red bananas, and do the same with four peaches. Peel and take out the seeds of 2 lbs. of hothouse grapes. Put all these fruits in a bowl. Squeeze the juice of two large oranges in another bowl, and add to it lb. of powdered sugar, onehalf pint of maraschino, one gill of brandy, three table-spoonfuls of finely cracked ice; mix well. Fill up each pineapple with the fruits and pour over the dressing, reserving a few grapes to decorate the cream. Beat very stiff one quart and a pint of good, fresh cream. When stiff, add to it x/z lb. of powdered sugar and one gill of maraschino ; mix gently. Put the cream in a high, round fruit-dish, and put the remaining grapes around the cream. Procure some fresh moss, and put it in plenty of cold water the previous day to make it very green. When ready to dress the fruit, shake the moss in a napkin and then arrange it on a round tray. Place the pineapples around the bowl of cream, and serve very cold. Grape-fruit Salad. — The small, inferior grape-fruit cannot be used for this purpose. Instead, select the largest and finest you can find. One big grape-fruit will serve three or four people. Peel it carefully and divide it into carpels, removing the seeds and every particle of the thick white skin. A fragment of this bitter covering may spoil the dish for the one to whose share the distasteful morsel falls. Arrange the sections of fruit upon lettuce, and pour over all a French dressing. Like every other Green-pepper Salad Merveille Salad salad, this should be thoroughly chilled before it is served. Green-pepper Salad. — They are selected as large as possible, and as shapely. Then the pointed ends are cut off and the seeds taken out and a mixture of shredded cabbage and celery, or cabbage alone, with a stiff mayonnaise, is put in, the cabbage showing at the top, and a bed of lettuce hearts is arranged for them, the light and dark green contrasting prettily.