Salad

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the many varieties of food daily consumed, none are more important than a salad, rightly compounded. And there is nothing more exasperating than an inferior one. The salad is the Prince of the Menu, and although a dinner be perfect in every other detail except the salad, the affair will be voted a failure if that be poor. It is therefore necessary for those contemplating dinner-giving, to personally overlook the preparation of the salad if they wish favorable criticism. ”

“ Let it be laid down as a golden rule, that the concoction of a salad should never, or hardly ever, be entrusted to the tender mercies of the British serving-maid. For the salad-maker, like the poet, is born, not made; and the divine afflatus—I don’t mean garlic—is as essential in the one as in the other. ”

“ A salad, however well dressed, is an oily and slippery enjoyment. Like all great joys, it is apt to escape us, especially in a lunch basket. Apple pie, most delicate of pasties, will exude, and you are apt to find the crust on the top of the basket, and the apple in the bottom of the carriage.
If you will take salad, and will not be taught by experience, make a perfect jardinière of all the cold vegetables, green peas, beans, and cauliflower, green peppers, cucumbers, and cold potatoes, and take this mixture dry to the picnic. ”

“ PURPOSES OF SALADS.--Because of the wide variety of salads and the large number of ingredients from which a selection may be made in their preparation, salads can be used for various purposes. The housewife who gives much attention to the artistic side of the serving of food in her home will often use a salad to carry out a color scheme in her meal. This is, of course, the least valuable use that salads have, but it is a point that should not be overlooked. The chief purpose of salads in a meal is to provide something that the rest of the foods served in the meal lack. ”

“ Important Points in Salad=Making.
(1) The green vegetables should be served fresh and crisp.
(2) Meat and fish should be well marinated and cold.
(3) The ingredients composing the salad should not be combined until the last moment before serving.
When to Serve Salads with French or Mayonnaise Dressing.
As a rule, subject, however, to exceptions, light vegetable salads, dressed with French dressing, are served at dinner; while heavy meat or fish Salads are reserved for luncheon, or supper, and are served with mayonnaise or cream dressing. [10]
When to Serve a Fruit Salad. ”

“ While salads may be compounded of all kinds of delicate meats, fish, shellfish, eggs, nuts, fruit, cheese and vegetables, cooked or uncooked, two things are indispensable to every kind and grade of salad, viz., the foundation of vegetables and the dressing. ”

“ SALADS. A SALAD should be light, fresh, and crisp; no matter what it is made of, it should never be “mussy.” Much decoration or handling will produce a heavy-looking dish.
Celery, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. should be thoroughly chilled before being combined in a salad. All meats and fish that are to be served in a salad must be seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil before being combined with the green vegetable and the dressing. It is well to have this seasoning added several hours before the salad is to be served. ”

“ Just what place salads have in the meal depends on the salad itself. A high-protein salad, such as lobster salad, should take the place of the meat course, whereas, a light salad of vegetables or fruits may be used as an additional course. ”

“ The salad is by no means the least attractive among the courses. You may have Pepper and Fruit Salad, with Nut-Bread Sandwiches or an Asparagus Salad with Lemon Rings. You may incline to Spring Salad with Horseradish Sandwiches or to Dressed Lettuce with Cheese-Bread Wafers. Or, again, you may prefer Chicory Salad with Cheese Croquettes. You have but to choose. With the passing of the salad and its sandwiches, salt and pepper sets are removed, the table is crumbed and the ice-cream plates are laid out, together with ice-cream forks and spoons. ”

“ A salad of whichever kind should be cool, delicate, and prepared by a gentle hand. Ordinary servants do not enough appreciate the "niceties" to make acceptable salads. The lettuce, cress, or whatever green is used, should be thoroughly washed, but not crushed, broken, or roughly handled, drained in a wire basket, dried in a napkin, and then torn with the fingers, not cut. Of course, cucumbers, beet-root, olives, etc., are exceptions.
The dressing for salads, whether simply oil and vinegar, or a mayonnaise, should be mixed with a wooden spoon, and an intelligent mind. ”

“ The variety in salads may consist of one fruit salad, one vegetable salad and one salad in which protein predominates, such as cottage cheese, meat or fish.
Head lettuce salad is universally popular and may appear at every meal.
In salad dressings, there should always be a cooked dressing, French dressing and mayonnaise. ”

“ Several other salad herbs, especially endive, water-cresses, and mustard-and-cress, may be ‘dressed’ in the same manner; always remembering that the excellence of a salad depends chiefly on the vegetables which compose them being recently gathered and carefully cleansed. ”

“ An excellent winter salad is made with beetroot and celery, cut in thin slices, and served—with or without onions—either with a mayonnaise sauce, or with a plain cream sauce: to every tablespoonful of cream add a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar, a little sugar, and a suspicion of cayenne. This salad looks best served in alternate slices of beet and celery, on a flat silver dish, around the sauce. ”

“ The wholesomest way of eating salads is with bread only, in preference to bread and butter, bread and cheese, or meat and bread; though any of these may be eaten with it, when the salad is seasoned only with salt and vinegar. It is not advisable to eat butter, cheese, or meat with salads, or any thing in which there is a mixture of oil. All fat substances are heavy of digestion, and to mix such as disagree in their nature, is to encrease this evil to a degree that the stomach can hardly overcome. 2. Prepare some lettuce, spinage tops, pennyroyal, sorrel, a few onions, and some parsley. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And a good salad means good oil. It also means good vinegar, or a fresh and juicy lime or lemon. Now the Almighty has given us better tools for salad-making than any wooden fork or spoon. In conditions of homely intimacy, a salad-maker, when all is ready, will wash his hands well and long as the moment approaches for serving the bowl. ”

“ An excellent salad dressing is also made by using the yolk of hard-boiled eggs, some cold mashed potatoes well pressed together with a fork, oil, vinegar, mustard, and salt rubbed in, in the proportions of two of oil to one of vinegar.
A salad must be fresh and freshly made, to be good. Never serve a salad the second day; and it is not well to cover a delicate salad with too much mayonnaise. The 130 very heart of the celery or the delicate inner leaves of the lettuce are the best for dinners. The heavy chicken and lobster, cabbage and potato salads, are dishes for lunches and suppers. ”

“ Salad, English, Lettuce.—The ordinary English salad is made either with French or English lettuces, and is generally dressed as follows:—One or two tablespoonfuls of cream or milk, a teaspoonful of made mustard, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, pepper, and salt. There are many people still living in remote parts of the country who prefer this style of dressing. ”

“ CONDITION OF SALAD INGREDIENTS.--When the kind of salad to be served is decided on, the selection and preparation of the materials are the next matters to receive attention. Very often materials that are on hand are utilized in this way, but if it is possible to select the ingredients expressly for the salad, they should be very carefully chosen. Any kind of salad, but particularly a vegetable or a fruit salad, becomes much more attractive if it is made with ingredients that are in good condition and that are attractive in appearance. ”

“ Salad, Mayonnaise.—This is generally considered the king of salads, and it can be made an exceedingly pretty-looking dish, Take two or more French lettuces, clean and dry them as directed above, and take the small heart of one lettuce about the size of a small walnut, uncut from the stalk, so that you can stand it upright in the middle of the salad, raised above the surface. ”

“ In this method, a French dressing is generally used, and this is often mixed at the table and added to the salad just before it is put on the small plates. Such a salad can be made very attractive, and it should be remembered above all things that the appearance of a salad is its great asset until it is eaten and that an artistically made salad always helps to make the meal more satisfactory. ”

“ Even though it is not desired to use the salad to carry out a color scheme, it should always be made an attractive dish. As is well known, nothing is so unappetizing as a salad in which the ingredients have not been properly prepared, the garnish is not fresh and crisp, or the dressing and salad ingredients have been combined in such a way as to appear messy or stale looking. ”

“ Given a clear beef soup, a slice of fresh-boiled salmon, a bit of spring lamb with mint sauce, some green pease and fresh potatoes, a salad of lettuce, or sliced tomatoes, or potatoes with a bit of onion, and you have a dinner fit for a Brillat-Savarin; or vary it with a pair of boiled chickens, and a jardiniere made of all the pease, beans, potatoes, cauliflower, fresh beets, of the day before, simply treated to a bath of vinegar and oil and pepper and salt. The lady who has conquered the salad question may laugh at the caprices of cooks, and defy the hour at which the train leaves. ”

“ The chief faults of the average salad, next to the use of inferior oil and flabby lettuce, are the excess of dressing, the excess of vinegar, and the use of pepper which is not freshly ground. A salad prepared in the manner described is as different as chalk is from cheese from the salad which is generally put before one, and no more difficult to make. ”

“ Fruit salads require thin, unsugared crackers—they may be served hot, sprinkled with mild paprika over butter. Anything of the sort served with a salad is merely served to bring out its flavor, not to destroy it!
DESSERTS
When the dinner is a heavy or elaborate one the heavy pudding with a rich sauce is distinctly out of keeping. Frappéed or cold desserts are the proper thing, served together with small wafers or cakes. At less formal dinners the sweet dessert may be omitted, and cheese and hard crackers, a fruit salad, or toasted wafers and coffee may be substituted. ”

“ Having prepared any kind of salad you may happen to have, such as endive, corn salad, lettuce, celery, mustard and cress, seasoned with beet-root, onions, or shalot; let the salad be cut up into a bowl or basin ready for seasoning in the following manner:—Cut eight ounces of fat bacon into small square pieces the size of a cob-nut, fry these in a frying-pan, and as soon as they are done, pour the whole upon the salad; add two table-spoonfuls of vinegar, pepper and salt to taste. ”

“ If the last course is salad instead of dessert, then, as you take off the used plates of the meat course, replace them with cold plates, bring the bowl of salad on and do not remove crumbs, salts, etc., until this course is finished. If your mistress prefers to make the salad dressing herself, put the bowl of lettuce in front of her, and at her right hand the oil, vinegar, and condiments she desires, and a small bowl and a tablespoon to mix the dressing in. ”

“ One cannot very well decide upon the particular kind of game and the manner in which it shall be served without giving some thought to the salad that in reality acts as its supplement. And the same rule which forbids the serving of a rich, heavy sauce with game applies to salads. The simpler the salad the more keenly will you relish the game. Chopped celery, lettuce, chicory, watercress or cucumbers, with a simple French dressing, are the salads par excellence to be served with game. ”

“ The making of a successful salad is an art indeed. The [pg 299] proper blending of the various ingredients and then using a well-blended dressing and garnishing, so that it will not only satisfy the eye but will tempt the palate as well; that is a real salad.
The proper combinations are very important; harmony must prevail. As, for instance, a combination of beets, tomatoes and carrots would not only be inartistic but also a poor combination of foods. Care must be taken in preparing the lettuce or other greens used. ”