1169. Horse-radish.—Let the horse-radish lie one or two hours in cold water; then scrape off the skin, grate it, and moisten it with vinegar. Serve it with roast meat.
1170. Oyster Gumbo.—Mix well one table-spoonful of flour and one of lard, and brown the mixture in a frying-pan; take the liquor of two quarts of oysters, set it on the fire, and when it boils, add the browned flour with some chopped leeks and parsley; then put in the oysters, and let the whole simmer for fifteen minutes; next sift into it a table-spoonful and a half of powdered sassafras, to give it the fillet; leave it two or three minutes longer on the fire, and serve it very hot. No spices, but black pepper. This dish will require more or less time to prepare, according to the ingredients of which it is to be composed. For chicken or turkey gumbo, the fowl must first be fricasseed. Any good cook will understand how to make a piquante and palatable stock, of whatever she may select for her gumbo.
1171. Mayonnaise.—Roast a pair of chickens or a turkey, in the morning, and put them away to settle the juices. Immediately before serving the dish, carve the fowls, and put them compactly into a dish; take the yolks of six eggs, and pour, in a very fine and continued stream upon them, half a bottle of olive oil, and stir the eggs one way, till they are creamed; then put half a tea-spoonful of vinegar into this dressing, and having put pepper, salt, and a little vinegar on the fowl, pour the dressing over it, and arrange all over it bunches of cool, fresh lettuce. Garnish with hard eggs.
1172. Jambalaya—Cut up, and stew till half done, a fowl, brown or white; then add rice, and a piece of ham well minced; this must be left on the fire till the rice has taken up the liquid; the roundness of the grain must be preserved, yet the dish must not be hard and dry. It is served in a heap, on a flat dish. Pepper and salt the only seasoning.
Southern children are very fond of this essentially home-dish. It is said to be of Indian origin. Wholesome as it is palatable, it makes part of almost every Creole dinner.