Chicken salad

“ Sometimes little strips of anchovy are added for a garnish. When on the table it should all be mixed together. Many may profit by this receipt for chicken salad; for it is astonishing how few understand making so common a dish. It is generally minced, and mixed with hard-boiled eggs, etc., for a dressing.{228}
Chicken Salad (Carême’s Receipt) .
Take some tender pullets; fry them in the sauté pan, or roast them; when cold, cut them up, skinning and trimming them neatly. Put the pieces into a tureen, with some salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, some sprigs of parsley, and an onion cut into slices ”

“ Whether meat salads are economical or not depends upon the way in which the materials are utilized. If in chicken salad, for example, only the white meat of chicken, especially bought for the purpose, and only the expensive inside stems of expensive celery are used, it can hardly be cheaper than plain chicken. But, if portions of meat left over from a previous serving are mixed with celery grown at home, they certainly make an economical dish, and one very acceptable to most persons. Cold roast pork or tender veal, in fact, any white meat, can be utilized in the same way. ”

“ Chicken Salad.—Well-fattened chickens, of medium size, tender and delicate, make better salad than large, overgrown ones. Put them on to cook in the morning, and save the water they are boiled in for soup. When cold, remove the skin and cut the flesh in pieces, the size you prefer. Some like the meat very coarse, others choose it quite fine. This is entirely a matter of taste. When cut up, throw over the dish a towel slightly damped in cold water, to keep the meat from drying. Take the best celery you can get, and cut it of the size you wish. ”

“ Then serve chicken salad made of the breast of chicken cut in dice, celery cut coarse, and large nut meats. Add sweetbreads and cucumbers to the salad if desired. Mix with a white mayonnaise and serve in white head lettuce, using the cup-like outside leaves. Use the tiny lettuce heart for a crown, and garnish with white radishes cut into roses, and olives cut in fancy shapes. Serve plain white bread and butter sandwiches cut in hearts and rings or salted wafers. Have the salad on white plates and passed from a tray trimmed in ferns or white sweet peas. Have the ice cream in any fancy shape. ”

“ The [215] yolk of egg hard-boiled and pressed through a wire strainer with the back of a spoon, so that it falls in little crinkled pieces all over the top, makes a pretty garnish. Celery tops, the tiny inside leaves of lettuce, and parsley may be used singly or together for a border.
Chicken salad is usually made with celery instead of lettuce, but the latter is better for an invalid, although tender, delicate celery may be used. Serve a very small quantity, for chicken salad is a concentrated food, and should not be eaten in large amounts by either the convalescent or the well. ”

“ Spread thinly with butter when it comes from the toaster. Between each two pieces place thin slices of chicken. Spread the chicken with a small amount of salad dressing, place a lettuce leaf on top of this, and cover with a second piece of toast. Serve.
132. CHICKEN-SALAD SANDWICHES.--When there is on hand only a small amount of chicken that is perhaps not in the right condition for slicing, it is a good plan to make a salad of it and use this for sandwich filling. If necessary, a little veal or pork may be used with the chicken.
CHICKEN-SALAD FILLING
1 c. ”

“ As far as meats are concerned, they are not used so extensively in salads as are fruits and vegetables. Often, however, veal or pork may be used to increase the quantity of material needed to make certain salads, such as chicken salad. Canned fish or fish freshly cooked makes appetizing salads, and if there is not a sufficient quantity of one kind on hand, another may be added without impairing the quality of the salad. ”

“ Put the pulp on the ice until just before serving; then dress with oil and vinegar exactly as directed for lettuce, etc.
Meat or fish salads should always be dressed with mayonnaise. I say nothing of the well- [304] known lobster and chicken salads, which are so general that one is tempted to think the majority of people do not know how excellent some other combination salads are. Salmon salad—the fish flaked, laid on a bed of crisp lettuce with a border of the leaves, and masked with mayonnaise, with a garnish of aspic—is both handsome and delicious ”

“ Cut one chicken into small pieces (not too small) ; boil one egg hard and pulverize the yolk (cut the white into the chicken) ; add the beaten yolks of three raw eggs; one-half teaspoonful each of ground mustard, white pepper, salt, sugar and celery salt or seed, the juice of one lemon, one tablespoonful melted butter, one tablespoonful salad oil (some prefer all butter) ; beat all well together until light and pour into one gill of boiling vinegar and let all cook until thick as cream, stirring constantly to avoid curdling. ”

“ Remove the yolks, and cream them with a good salad dressing. Mix with chopped ham, or chicken, or any cold meat, if you choose. Make mixture into balls, and fill in the hollows of your whites. If you have not the salad dressing mix the yolks from six eggs with a teaspoonful of melted butter, a dash of cayenne pepper, a little prepared mustard, salt, vinegar and sugar to taste.
SALADS AND SALAD DRESSING. "To make a perfect salad, there should be a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a madcap to stir the ingredients up, and mix them well together." ”

“ The hot cabbage, red cabbage, celery, cucumber and potato salads, are particularly appropriate for serving with meats. The lettuce salad, with the French dressing, and the dressed celery, are the best to serve after the meats. A rich salad, like chicken, lobster or salmon, is out of place at a company dinner. It is best served for suppers and lunches. The success of a salad (after the dressing is made) depends upon keeping the lettuce or celery crisp and not adding meat or dressing to it until the time for serving. ”

“ However, if merely small pieces are left or if fried or broiled poultry remains, it will be advisable to make some other use of these left-overs. It is often possible for the ingenious housewife to add other foods to them so as to increase the quantity and thus make them serve more. For example, a small quantity of pork or veal may be satisfactorily used with chicken, as may also pieces of hard-cooked eggs, celery, mushrooms, etc. In fact, salads may be made by combining such ingredients and salad dressings. ”

“ Salads play a most important part in all conventional suppers. Chicken, lobster, crab, duck, tongue, and lamb salad take the place of other meats, although for a large supper there is no objection to serving a meat salad following a hot course. If one can make a good mayonnaise dressing, salads are the easiest of all refreshments, and are most acceptable to the guests. ”

“ Have the main course fried chicken and rice with shoestring potatoes, tiny red radishes, creamed cauliflower, pickles and hot rolls. Creamed sweetbreads on toast may be used for a course if wished. Serve salmon salad on a lettuce leaf and with it reception flakes on which grated cheese has been sprinkled and [Pg 71] the wafers put in the oven just long enough to melt the cheese. To serve the chicken take a large chop plate, pile the rice in a snowy mound in the center and place the pieces of chicken around it, serving a spoonful of rice with each piece of chicken. ”

“ The dinner was in the best style of women's-magazine art, whereby the salad was served in hollowed apples, and everything but the invincible fried chicken resembled something else. ”

“ The green salads are the most simple of any, and are especially worthy the little care required to make them perfect.
Cutting the meat. Meat of any kind used for salads should be cut into dice, but not smaller than one half inch, or it will seem like hash. It should be marinated before being mixed with the other parts of the salad. Meat mixtures are usually piled in cone-shape on a dish, the Mayonnaise then spread over it, and garnished with lettuce, capers, hard-boiled eggs, gherkins, etc. ”

“ Indeed, all the compound salads,—that is, salads of many ingredients,—more particularly if they are served with a cooked or mayonnaise dressing, are substantial enough for the chief dish of a hearty meal. Their digestibility depends, in large measure, on the tenderness of the different ingredients, as well as upon the freshness of the uncooked vegetables that enter into their composition.
A salad has this superiority over every other production of the culinary art: A salad (but not every salad) is suitable to serve upon any occasion, or to any class or condition of men. ”

“ The flavor of a few drops of onion juice is relished by many in any kind of fish or meat sandwich, while others would prefer a few grains of fine-chopped parsley.
When salad sandwiches are to be prepared, chop the meat or fish very fine and mix it with the salad dressing. Celery, cabbage, cress, cucumbers, tomatoes or olives may be chopped and added to the meat with the dressing. When lettuce is used, the leaf is served whole, the edges just appearing outside the bread. Any one of these vegetables, combined with a salad dressing, makes a delicious sandwich without meat or fish. ”

“ Young housekeepers will be surprised at the many vegetables, frequently left-overs, from which appetizing salads may be made by the addition of a couple tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise, besides nut meats, lettuce, watercress, celery and fruit, all of which may be used to advantage. A good potato salad is one of the cheapest and most easily prepared salads. A German dressing for dandelions, lettuce or potatoes may be prepared in a few minutes by adding a couple of tablespoonfuls of salad dressing (which the forehanded housewife will always keep on hand) to a little hot ham or bacon gravy. ”

“ And here are not many—only a few that go especially well in cold weather, when to have any variety at all in salads incurs a considerable outlay of rumination. Just a little inventive faculty and a firm purpose to have your table superior, even in details, to that of your dearest enemy, and you can with materials on hand in January have salads that give the eternal chicken and lobster with mayonnaise the go-by,—though, I fear me, the snubbing in the near future will come from the lobster itself. ”

“ The best dinner salad will perhaps always be white, crisp lettuce, with a simple French dressing, although, to those acquainted with it, escarole runs it hard, with its cool, watery ribs and crisp leaves. Elaborate salads, or those dressed with mayonnaise, are too heavy to form the latter part of an already sufficiently nourishing meal, but for luncheons and suppers the rich salad is invaluable. ”

“ Cut up half a pound of fat salt pork in a frying-pan, and fry until the grease is extracted, but not until it browns. Wash and cut up a young chicken (broiling size) , soak in salt and water for half an hour; wipe dry, season with pepper, and dredge with flour; then fry in the hot fat until each piece is a rich brown on both sides. Take up, drain, and set aside in a hot covered dish. Pour into the gravy left in the frying-pan a cup of milk—half cream is better; thicken with a spoonful of flour and a tablespoonful of butter; add some chopped parsley, boil up, and pour over the hot chicken. ”

“ They are exceedingly wholesome.
Nearly all the meats, vegetables, and fruits may be served as salads. The essential thing is to have the salad fresh and cold; and if green, to have the leaves crisp and dry.
Lettuce, Romaine, endive and chicory or escarole make the best dinner salads, although one may use mixed cooked vegetables or well-prepared uncooked cabbage.
Left-over green vegetables, string beans, peas, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, cooked spinach, leeks and beets may all take their place in the dinner salad. Use them mixed, alone, or as a garnish for lettuce. ”

“ Make a very thin flat border of butter about one inch from the edge of the dish the salad is to be served on, fix the pieces of egg upright close to each other, the yolk outside, or alternately the white and yolk, lay in the centre a layer of fresh salad, and, having cut a freshly roasted young grouse into eight or ten pieces, prepare a sauce as follows: Put a spoonful of eschalots finely chopped in a basin, one ditto of castor sugar, the yolk of one egg, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, tarragon, and chervil, and a little salt. ”

“ Pare tomatoes, and keep in a cold place, and sprinkle with chopped ice at serving time. The list of vegetables suitable for salads is so long that the question of kind is wholly a matter of choice. Asparagus, peas, string beans, beets, cauliflower, etc., are all well utilized in salads. Freshly cooked vegetables or left-overs may be used, but all cooked vegetables must be cold and perfectly tender. By deftly combining these left-overs with the favorite dressing, there is material for a delicious and economical salad, to which the somewhat aristocratic name of macedoine salad may be given. ”