Common Sense in the Household 33

Common Sense in the Household 33

ONION VINEGAR.

 

6 large onions.

1 tablespoonful salt.

1 tablespoonful white sugar.

1 quart best vinegar.

 

Mince the onions, strew on the salt, and let them stand five or six

hours. Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved,

pour over the onions; put in a jar, tie down the cover, and steep a

fortnight. Strain and bottle.

 

 

ELDERBERRY CATSUP.

 

1 quart of elderberries.

1 quart of vinegar.

6 anchovies, soaked and pulled to pieces.

Half a teaspoonful mace.

A pinch of ginger.

2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

1 teaspoonful salt.

1 tablespoonful whole peppers.

 

Scald the vinegar and pour over the berries, which must be picked from

the stalks and put into a large stone jar. Cover with a pane of glass,

and set in the hot sun two days. Strain off the liquor, and boil up

with the other ingredients, stirring often, one hour, keeping covered

unless while stirring. Let it cool; strain and bottle.

 

This is used for flavoring brown gravies, soups, and ragoûts, and,

stirred into browned butter, makes a good piquant sauce for broiled or

baked fish.

 

 

PEPPER VINEGAR.

 

6 pods red peppers broken up.

3 dozen black pepper-corns.

2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.

1 quart of best vinegar.

 

Scald the vinegar in which the sugar has been dissolved; pour over the

pepper, put into a jar, and steep a fortnight. Strain and bottle.

 

This is eaten with boiled fish and raw oysters, and is useful in the

preparation of salads.

 

 

HORSE-RADISH VINEGAR.

 

6 tablespoonfuls scraped or grated horse-radish.

1 tablespoonful white sugar.

1 quart vinegar.

 

Scald the vinegar; pour boiling hot over the horseradish. Steep a week,

strain and bottle.

 

 

SALADS.

 

“The dressing of the salad should be saturated with oil, and seasoned

with pepper and salt before the vinegar is added. It results from

this process that there never can be too much vinegar; for, from the

specific gravity of the vinegar compared with oil, what is more than

useful will fall to the bottom of the bowl. The salt should not be

dissolved in the vinegar, but in the oil, by which means it is more

equally distributed throughout the salad.”—_Chaptal, a French chemist._

 

The Spanish proverb says, “that to make a perfect salad, there should be

a miser for oil, a spendthrift for vinegar, a wise man for salt, and a

madcap to stir the ingredients up and mix them well together.”

 

 

SYDNEY SMITH’S RECEIPT FOR SALAD DRESSING.

 

Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve,

Softness and smoothness to the salad give;

Of mordant mustard take a single spoon—

Distrust the condiment that bites too soon;

Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault,

To add a double quantity of salt.

Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,

And twice with vinegar procured from town;

True taste requires it, and your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.

Let onions’ atoms lurk within the bowl,

And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;

And lastly, in the flavored compound toss

A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.

Oh, great and glorious! oh, herbaceous meat!

’Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat.

Back to the world he’d turn his weary soul,

And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.

 

At least twenty-five years ago I pasted the above doggerel in my

scrap-book, and committed it to memory. The first salad I was ever

trusted to compound was dressed in strict obedience to the directions

of the witty divine, and to this day these seem to me pertinent and

worthy of note. The anchovy sauce can be omitted if you like, and a

spoonful of Harvey’s or Worcestershire substituted. This is best suited

for chicken or turkey salad.

 

 

LOBSTER SALAD. ✠

 

Pick out every bit of the meat from the body and claws of a cold boiled

lobster. Lay aside the coral for the dressing, and mince the rest. For

the dressing you will need—

 

4 eggs, boiled hard.

2 tablespoonfuls salad oil.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

1 teaspoonful salt.

2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.

½ teaspoonful cayenne pepper. _Vinegar at discretion._

1 teaspoonful of Harvey’s, Worcestershire, or anchovy sauce.

 

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste in a mortar or bowl, with a Wedgewood

pestle, a silver or wooden spoon, until _perfectly_ free from lumps.

Add gradually, rubbing all the while, the other ingredients, the coral

last. This should have been worked well upon a plate with a silver

knife or wooden spatula. Proceed slowly and carefully in the work of

amalgamating the various ingredients, moistening with vinegar as they

stiffen. Increase the quantity of this as the mixture grows smooth,

until it is thin enough to pour over the minced lobster. You will need

a teacupful at least. Toss with a silver fork and do not break the

meat. Some mix chopped lettuce with the salad; but unless it is to be

eaten within a few minutes, the vinegar will wither the tender leaves.

The better plan is to heap a glass dish with the inner leaves of

several lettuce-heads, laying pounded ice among them, and pass with the

lobster, that the guests may add the green salad to their taste.

 

When lettuce is out of season, the following dressing, the receipt for

which was given me by a French gourmand, may be used.

 

Prepare the egg and coral as above, with the condiments there

mentioned, but mix with the lobster-meat four tablespoonfuls of fine

white cabbage, chopped small, with two small onions, also minced into

almost invisible bits, a teaspoonful of anchovy or other sauce, and a

tablespoonful of celery vinegar.

 

All lobster salad should be eaten as soon as possible after the

dressing is added, else it becomes unwholesome. If you use canned

lobster, open and turn out the contents of the can into a china dish

several hours before you mix the dressing, that the close, airless

smell may pass away.

 

Garnish the edges of the dish with cool white leaves of curled lettuce,

or with a chain of rings made of the whites of the boiled eggs.

 

 

EXCELSIOR LOBSTER SALAD WITH CREAM DRESSING. ✠

 

1 fine lobster, boiled and when cold picked to pieces, or two

small ones.

1 cup of best salad oil.

½ cup sweet cream, whipped light to a cupful of froth.

1 lemon—the juice strained.

1 teaspoonful mustard wet up with vinegar.

1 tablespoonful powdered sugar.

1 teaspoonful salt.

A pinch of cayenne pepper.

4 tablespoonfuls vinegar.

Beaten yolks of two eggs.

 

Beat eggs, sugar, salt, mustard, and pepper until light; then, and very

gradually, the oil. When the mixture is quite thick, whip in the lemon.

Beat five minutes before putting in the vinegar. Just before the salad

goes to table add half the whipped cream to this dressing and stir well

into the lobster. Line the salad-bowl with lettuce-leaves; put in the

seasoned meat and cover with the rest of the whipped cream.

 

This salad deserves its name.

 

 

CHICKEN SALAD. ✠

 

The white meat of a cold boiled or roasted chicken (or turkey).

Three-quarters the same bulk of chopped celery.

2 hard-boiled eggs.

1 raw egg, well beaten.

1 teaspoonful of salt.

1 teaspoonful pepper.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

3 teaspoonfuls salad oil.

2 teaspoonfuls white sugar.

½ teacupful of vinegar.

 

Mince the meat well, removing every scrap of fat, gristle, and skin;

cut the celery into bits half an inch long, _or less_, mix them, and

set aside in a cold place while you prepare the dressing.

 

Rub the yolks of the eggs to a fine powder, add the salt, pepper, and

sugar, then the oil, grinding hard, and putting in but a few drops at a

time. The mustard comes next, and let all stand together while you whip

the raw egg to a froth. Beat this into the dressing, and pour in the

vinegar spoonful by spoonful, whipping the dressing well as you do it.

Sprinkle a little dry salt over the meat and celery; toss it up lightly

with a silver fork; pour the dressing over it, tossing and mixing until

the bottom of the mass is as well saturated as the top; turn into the

salad-bowl, and garnish with white of eggs (boiled) cut into rings or

flowers, and sprigs of bleached celery-tops.

 

If you cannot get celery, substitute crisp white cabbage, and use celery vinegar in the dressing. You can also, in this case, chop some green pickles, gherkins, mangoes, or cucumbers, and stir in.