No. 39.—Lobster Salad, for two persons.
Take a middle-sized lobster, break the claw carefully, extract the tail without splitting it, cut your lobster in fine, though large, slices, crosswise, put some salad in a bowl in proportion for two, either coss or cabbage lettuce, or endive, or mixed salad, have boiled 3 or 4 hard eggs, cut crosswise when cold, then form a crown on your salad by intermixing alternate layers of egg and lobster, placing the soft part of the interior of the fish in the centre. Cucumber and beet-root may be used instead of eggs. Then put into a basin a small teaspoonful of salt, quarter ditto of pepper, 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, 4 of oil, a little sugar, stir well together, pour over your salad, which mix gently with a spoon and fork, and serve; the addition of chopped parsley, tarragon, and chervil, or chopped shalot, is an improvement.
No. 40.—Crab Salad, with Eggs.
Place the soft part of the crab in a bowl, having made it into a pulp; add to it the quantum of oil, vinegar, salt, pepper; mix all well together, as above. If too thick, add half a gill of milk, to form a thinnish sauce; put your salad in a bowl according to proportion, over which put lightly the meat of the crab; pour your sauce over, having cut four eggs lengthwise in quarters; toss it well, stir round, and serve as above.
No. 41.—New Salad, Tartar Fashion.
Prepare your salad, well washed and dried; (cabbage or coss lettuce are preferable); boil 4 onions; when cold cut in thick slices; cut also 4 pickled cucumbers, Israelite fashion, put a layer of the salad at the bottom, then a bed of cucumber and onion, and another of salad, at the top; have 2 mild salt herrings, ready broiled, with all the bones extracted; cut it in small square pieces, season with salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil, in proportion, tossing all well together, as this plan is preferable to using a spoon and fork.
No. 42.—Plain Salad, with Anchovies.
Put your salad in a bowl, wash and shake as above; wash and scrape a dozen of anchovies; bone them by splitting them up; have 2 hard eggs, chopped fine; put them over the salad; chop about 2oz. of either piccalilli, pickle, or plain gherkin. The above is for four persons; then add salad enough for that number; season with a teaspoonful of salt, a quarter that of pepper, 4 tablespoons of oil, 2 of vinegar; stir well, but lightly, and serve. Coss and cabbage lettuce are preferable. Any one who does not object to oil, 5 tablespoonfuls may be used to 2 of the best French vinegar. For mixed salads proceed the same. Anchovies, eggs, and gherkins may be omitted, and yet will make an excellent salad.
No. 43.—Endive Salad.
Highly appreciated by French gourmets.
Wash quickly four heads of very white endive. The French is much preferable to the English, and is imported in abundance to the London markets. Why they should be washed quickly is, that if they remain in the water any length of time they become as bitter as gall. Take off the green leaves, if any; cut the stem off and the leaf in two when too long, shake well in a cloth to dry, and put in your salad bowl, which you have previously rubbed with a piece of garlic; add in your salad, a teaspoonful of salt, quarter one of pepper, 5 tablespoonfuls of oil, 2 of vinegar; rub a piece of garlic on two crusts of bread, each about the size of a walnut; add them to your salad, which you stir well for a few minutes with a spoon and fork, and serve. The garlic in this salad, far from being objectionable, gives only a slight flavour, to which no one can object, but which, on the contrary, is highly appreciated by the gourmet. Garlic may be either increased or diminished according to taste.