Take the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and salt and mustard to taste; mash it fine; make a paste by adding a dessertspoonful of olive oil or melted butter (use butter always when it is difficult to get fresh oil); mix thoroughly, and then dilute by adding gradually a teacupful of vinegar, and pour over the lettuce. Garnish by slicing another egg and laying over the lettuce. This is sufficient for a moderate-sized dish of lettuce.
This, as the word implies, is a mixture of various vegetables, the chief of which are generally chopped-up carrot and turnip with young green peas. A very nice dish which can be served at a very short notice, if you have curry sauce in bottles, is a dish of vegetable curry. The macedoines should be made hot in the tin, the liquor drained off, and the curry sauce, made hot, should be poured into a well made in the centre of the macedoines in the dish. Macedoines are also very useful, as they can be served as a vegetable salad at a moment's notice, as the vegetables are sufficiently cooked without being made hot.
They should be as fresh from the vine as possible, few vegetables being more unwholesome when long gathered. As soon as they are brought in lay them in cold water. Just before they are to go to table take them out, pare them and slice them into a pan of fresh cold water. When they are all sliced, transfer them to a deep dish, season them with a little salt and black pepper, and pour over them some of the best vinegar, to which you may add a little salad oil. You may mix with them a small quantity of sliced onion; not to be eaten, but to communicate a slight flavour of onion to the vinegar.
One large head of cabbage, twelve eggs, two small cupfuls of sugar, two teaspoonfuls of salt, one table-spoonful of melted butter, two teaspoonfuls of mustard, one cupful of vinegar, or more, if you like. Divide the cabbage into four pieces, and wash well in cold water. Take off all the wilted leaves and cut out the tough, hard parts. Cut the cabbage very fine with a sharp knife. Have the eggs boiled hard, and ten of them chopped fine. Add these and the other ingredients to the cabbage. Arrange on a dish and garnish with the two remaining eggs and pickled beets.
Peel and slice up some ripe bananas and oranges, removing the pips from the oranges, but saving the juice. Take a deep glass dish, lay at the bottom some bananas, then a layer of oranges. Sprinkle well with sugar, then some more bananas and oranges and sugar, until all the materials are used up. Cover and let it stand for an hour, then serve as a sweet.
Peel and pit some peaches, cut in slices and add as much sliced pineapple, some apricots, strawberries and raspberries, put these in a dish. Prepare a syrup of juice of two lemons, two oranges, one cup of water and one pound sugar, a half teaspoon of powdered cinnamon, grated rind of lemon, add one cup red wine and a half glass of Madeira, arrak or rum. Boil this syrup for five minutes, then pour over the fruit, tossing the fruit from time to time until cool. Place on ice and serve cold.
The dishes on which meats, fish, jellies and creams are placed should be large enough to leave a margin of an inch or so between the food and the lower edge of the border of the dish. It is well to pour the sauce for cold puddings around the pudding, especially if there will be a contrast in color. It is a great improvement to have the sauce poured around the article instead of over it, and to have the border of the dish garnished with bits of parsley, celery tops or carrot leaves. When sauce is poured around meat or fish the dish must be quite hot, or the sauce will cool quickly. Small rolls or sticks of bread are served with soup. Potatoes and bread are usually served with fish, but many people prefer to serve only bread. Butter is not served at the more elegant dinners. Two vegetables will be sufficient in any course. Cold dishes should be very cold, and hot dishes hot. It is a good idea to have a dish of sliced lemons for any kind of fish, and especially for those broiled or fried. Melons, cantelopes, cucumbers and radishes, and tomatoes, when served in slices, should all be chilled in the ice chest. Be particular not to overdo the work of decorating. Even a simple garnish adds much to the appearance of a dish, but too much decoration only injures it. Garnishes should be so arranged as not to interfere with serving. Potato-balls and thin fried potatoes make a nice garnish for all kinds of fried and broiled meats and fish. Cold boiled beets, carrots and turnips, and the whites of hard-boiled eggs, stamped out with a fancy vegetable cutter, make a pretty garnish for cold or hot meats. Thin slices of toast, cut into triangles, make a good garnish for many dishes. Whipped cream is a delicate garnish for all Bavarian dreams, blanc- manges, frozen puddings and ice creams. Arrange around jellies or creams a border of any kind of delicate green, like smilax or parsley, or of rose leaves, and dot it with bright colors--pinks, geraniums, verbenas or roses. Remember that the green should be dark and the flowers small and bright. A bunch of artificial rose leaves, for decorating dishes of fruit at evening parties, lasts for years. Natural leaves are preferable when they can be obtained. Wild roses, buttercups and nasturtiums, if not used too freely, we suitable for garnishing a salad.
Take a pound or so of cold boiled fish (halibut, rock or cod), not chop, but cut, into pieces an inch in length. Mix in a bowl a dressing as follows: The yolks of four boiled eggs rubbed to a smooth paste with salad oil or butter; add to these salt, pepper, mustard, two teaspoonfuls of white sugar, and, lastly, six tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Beat the mixture until light, and just before pouring it over the fish, stir in lightly the frothed white of a raw egg. Serve the fish in a glass dish, with half the dressing stirred in with it. Spread the remainder over the top, and lay lettuce leaves (from the core of the head of lettuce) around the edges, to be eaten with it.
Cut some slices of cold mutton or lamb, removing every bit of fat and skin that you can, unless that destroys the firmness of the slice. Prepare a salad of lettuce, and if you cannot give a mayonnaise sauce, add to the lettuce plenty of sliced cucumber, for that keeps the mutton moist. Put the salad on each slice and roll the meat over as tightly as you can. Lay the rolls closely together in a dish and sprinkle a very little salad dressing over them. This way of doing meat is very useful for taking to picnics, or for taking on a long journey. [Pour la Patrie.]
