Salads and Sandwiches : Part 1

Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery: A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet
By A. G. Payne

(Page 6 of 18)

Salads and Sandwiches. - Probably the most patriotic Englishman will admit that, on the subject of salads, we can learn something from the French. During the last half-century a great improvement has taken place on this point in this country. Many years ago it was the fashion to dress an English lettuce, resembling in shape an old umbrella, with a mixture of brown sugar, milk, mustard and even anchovy and Worcester sauce and then add a few drops of oil, as if it were some dangerous poison, like prussic acid, not to be tampered with lightly.

The old-fashioned lettuces were so hard and crisp that it was difficult to chew them without making a noise somewhat similar to walking on a beach. In modern days, however, we have arrived at a stage of civilization in which, as a rule, we use soft French lettuces instead of the hard gingham-shaped vegetables which somehow or other our grandfathers ate for supper with a whole lobster, seasoned with about half a pint of vinegar and then slept none the worse for the performance.

The first point for consideration, if we wish to have a good salad, is to have the lettuces crisp and dry. Old-fashioned French cookery-books direct that the lettuce should never be washed. The stalks should be cut off, the outside leaves removed and thrown away and the lettuce itself should then be pulled in pieces with the fingers and each piece wiped with a clean cloth. This is not always practicable, but the principle remains the same. You can wash the lettuce leaves without bruising them. You can dry them by shaking them up lightly in a large clean cloth and you can spread them out and let them get dry an hour or two before they are dressed.

Another important point to be borne in mind is that a salad should never be dressed till just before it is wanted to be eaten. If by chance you put by the remains of a dressed salad, it is good for nothing the next morning. Finally, the oil must be pure olive oil of the best quality and to ensure this it should bear the name of some well-known firm. A good deal of the oil sold simply as salad oil, bearing no name, is adulterated, sometimes with cotton-seed oil.

Salad, French Lettuce, Plain. - Clean one or more French lettuces (throw away all the leaves that are decayed or bruised), place these in a salad-bowl, and, supposing we have sufficient for two people, dress the salad as follows: - Put a salt spoonful of salt and half a salt spoonful of pepper into a tablespoon. Fill the tablespoon up with oil, stir the pepper and salt up with a fork and pour it over the lettuce. Now add another tablespoonful of oil and then toss the lettuce leaves lightly together with a spoon and fork. Allow one tablespoonful of oil to each person. This salad would suffice for two. Be sure and mix the lettuce and oil well together before you add any vinegar. The reason of this is that if you add the vinegar first it would soak into the lettuce leaves, making one part more acid than another. Having well mixed up the lettuce and oil, add half a tablespoonful of vinegar. Mix it once more and the salad is dressed.

In France they always add to the lettuce, before it is dressed, two or three finely chopped fresh tarragon leaves. Dried tarragon can be used, but it is not equal to fresh. If you have no tarragon it is a great improvement to use tarragon vinegar instead of ordinary vinegar. Tarragon vinegar is sold by all grocers at sixpence per bottle.

It is also often customary to rub the salad-bowl with a bead of garlic, or rub a piece of crust of bread with garlic and toss this piece of crust up with the salad after it has been dressed. Garlic should never be chopped up, but only used as stated above.

A good French salad is also always decorated with one or more hard-boiled eggs, cut into quarters. These are placed on the top of the lettuce.

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.

Salad, English, Mixed. - The old-fashioned English mixed salad generally consisted of English lettuce cut up into strips crossways, to which was added mustard and cress, boiled beetroot, chopped celery, spring onions, radishes and watercress. It is by no means a bad mixture when dressed with oil, and, of course, it can be dressed it a l'Anglaise. It makes an excellent accompaniment to a huge hunk of cheese, a crusty loaf, a good appetite and a better digestion.

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. Arrange all the softer parts of the leaves on the top of the salad so as to make as much as possible a smooth surface. Make some Mayonnaise sauce, thick enough to be spread like butter and mask this little mound and all the surface of the middle of the salad round it with a thin layer of the sauce, so that it looks like the top of a mold of solid custard. Ornament the edge of the salad with hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters and place between the quarters slices of pickled gherkins and stoned olives. Take a small teaspoonful of French capers, dry them on a cloth and sprinkle a few of them about an inch apart on the white surface.

Next chop up, very finely, about half a teaspoonful of parsley and see that this doesn't stick together in lumps. Place this on the end of a knife and flip the knife so that the little green specks of parsley fall on the white surface. Next take about half a salt spoonful of finely crumbled bread and shake these in a saucer with one or two drops of cochineal. This will color them a bright red and they will have all the appearance of lobster-coral. Place these red bread-crumbs on the end of a knife and let them fall over the white surface like the parsley. The little red and green specks on the white background make the dish look exceedingly pretty. Before mixing the salad all together add a tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar or lemon-juice.

Cassell & Company, Limited: London, Paris & Melbourne. 1891.