Summer Salad
Origin: London, England
Source: Isabella Beeton, 1861
Ingredients
- 3 lettuces
- 2 handfuls of mustard-and-cress
- 10 young radishes
- a few slices of cucumber
- SALAD IN BOWL.]
Instructions
- Let the herbs be as fresh as possible for a salad, and, if at all stale or dead-looking, let them lie in water for an hour or two, which will very much refresh them.
- Wash and carefully pick them over, remove any decayed or wormeaten leaves, and drain them thoroughly by swinging them gently in a clean cloth.
- With a silver knife, cut the lettuces into small pieces, and the radishes and cucumbers into thin slices;
- arrange all these ingredients lightly on a dish, with the mustard-and-cress, and pour under, but not over the salad, either of the sauces No. 506, 507, or 508, and do not stir it up until it is to be eaten.
- It may be garnished with hard-boiled eggs, cut in slices, sliced cucumbers, nasturtiums, cut vegetable-flowers, and many other things that taste will always suggest to make a pretty and elegant dish.
- In making a good salad, care must be taken to have the herbs freshly gathered, and _thoroughly drained_ before the sauce is added to them, or it will be watery and thin.
- Young spring onions, cut small, are by many persons considered an improvement to salads; but, before these are added, the cook should always consult the taste of her employer.
- Slices of cold meat or poultry added to a salad make a convenient and quickly-made summer luncheon-dish; or cold fish, flaked, will also be found exceedingly nice, mixed with it.