These best salad recipes make eating colorful, fresh foods easy and delicious. The days of boring salad ideas are over!
A dinner salad is composed of daintily cooked or raw green vegetables, dressed with French dressing—about four or five parts of oil to one of vinegar, with seasonings to harmonize with the materials over which it is to be poured.
For instance, finely shaved cabbage, one of the daintiest of dinner salads, is much more palatable and attractive when seasoned with finely chopped or pounded mint, or mint sauce. Lettuce is decidedly better with a suspicion of garlic or onion; chicory with a drop or two of Worcestershire sauce. Garlic is an excellent flavoring, but use it sparingly — rub the spoon or the bottom of the bowl, or press it down in a crust of bread and place it in the bowl under the lettuce or cress.
All dinner salads should be dressed at the table or at a side table at the last moment. They wilt and become unattractive if they stand even five minutes. The French have a way of dressing salads which is to be recommended. First dust over salt and pepper; then rub the spoon with garlic, measure in it the given amount of oil, pour it over the salad, and mix thoroughly; then measure and pour over the given quantity of vinegar, and mix again.
The vinegai- going over last cuts the flavor of the oil and gives an entirely different result from the ordinary salad with French dressing; the oil is less pronounced. The term salad is also applied to any form of cold meat dishes, mixed with lettuce or celery and seasoned like a salad. Chicken and celery, beef, mutton or fish dressed with mayonnaise dressing are salads. In this country fruits cut in slices and dressed with sweetened alcohol are known as “fruit salads.”
If one has the full understanding of several simple dressings any number of salads, perhaps forty or fifty, may be made by changing and mixing flavorings and ingredients. A little ingenuity blended with artistic taste will produce a different salad every day in the month.
- French Dressing
- Italian Dressing
- Lettuce Salad
- Chicory Salad
- Sparagus Salad
- String Bean Salad
- Cauliflower Salad
- Woods Salad
- Carrot Salad
- A Simple Russian Salad
1. French Dressing
Put half a teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of pepper in a bowl; add slowly, mixing all the while, four tablespoon fuls of olive oil. When the salt is dissolved add one tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar or lemon juice. Mix and use at once.
2. Italian Dressing
Put in a bowl half a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of cayenne, a teaspoonful of tomato paste, or a tablespoonful of tomato ketchup; add gradually, mixing all the while, four tablespoonfuls of olive oil. Add one clove of garlic that has been mashed to a pulp, and a tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar.
3. Lettuce Salad
Cut the lettuce in four quarters, beginning at the bottom. Remove the leaves carefully without mashing or pressing them. Carefully wash each leaf and put it on a clean, soft napkin; dry and arrange them loosely in the salad-bowl. Sprinkle over chopped chives, parsley or onion, as you like.
At serving-time have this brought to the table, also the oil and vinegar. Dust the salad with salt and pepper. Rub the spoon with garlic, measure the oil, pour it over the lettuce, mix and toss with a salad fork and spoon until the oil is evenly distributed. Then pour over the vinegar, toss again, and serve.
My Favorite Salad
Select a white, crisp head of lettuce; cut at the base, break it apart, and throw the leaves in cold water for an hour. Cut in very thin slices a carefully boiled beet; shave sufficient cabbage to make a pint; throw it in ice water. At serving time shake and dry the lettuce and the cabbage.
Put a layer of lettuce leaves in the bottom of a salad-bowl, put over a portion of the cabbage, then some beets, a half teaspoonful of celery seed; then another layer of cabbage and garnishing of beets. Peel two tomatoes, cut them in halves, press out the seeds, and cut the flesh in cubes of an inch.
Put these around the edge. Put in the centre of the bowl the heart of the head of lettuce, and stand it aside until serving-time. To dress, dust with a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, sprinkle over all four tablespoonfuls of mint sauce, add a tablespoonful of onion juice, a teaspoonful of soy, or Worcestershire sauce, and the same of mushroom ketchup that has been well mixed with a clove of garlic thoroughly mashed. Add eight tablespoonfuls of olive oil, and mix until each leaf of the lettuce is thoroughly covered with the dressing.
Add four tablespoonfuls of grape and tarragon vinegar mixed; mix again, and serve immediately.
4. Chicory Salad
This, to me, is the most delightful of all dinner salads. Wash the chicory, trim the ends, leaving each piece about a finger’s length. Put in a bowl half a teaspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of grated onion, a saltspoonful of pepper; mix, and add four tablespoonfuls of olive oil ; rub until the salt is dissolved; add a tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar; mix, pour over the chicory, and serve at once.
5. Sparagus Salad
Trim neatly one bunch of asparagus, stand it in a kettle of boiling, salted water, cover, and cook for forty-five minutes. Drain and cool. Arrange neatly upon a flat dish and serve very cold, with French dressing.
6. String Bean Salad
Select young, tender beans; string and cut each one in three pieces lengthwise. Cover with boiling, salted water; boil for twenty minutes, and drain. Throw them in cold water for ten minutes; then put them in boiling, unsalted water, and cook for fifteen minutes longer. Drain and cool. Arrange them neatly on a small platter, cover with French dressing, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve at once.
7. Cauliflower Salad
Soak a head of cauliflower in cold water; break it in flowerets and cook in salted, boiling water for thirty minutes. Keep it perfectly white; if it boils too long it will lose its color. When done lift it carefully and stand aside to cool. At serving-time arrange it in a salad-bowl, sprinkle with chopped parsley and a tablespoonful of onion juice, then pour Italian dressing over all, and serve.
8. Woods Salad
Scald and peel solid tomatoes, take a slice from the stem ends, scoop out the centres, and stand them on the ice to cool. Chop a handful of sheep sorrel, mix it with an equal quantity of chopped cress, finely chopped mushrooms, and chopped mint; fill this in the tomatoes, stand them on lettuce leaves, and pour French dressing over them.
Partridge berries may be used in place of the mushrooms when the latter cannot be procured.
9. Carrot Salad
Cut young and perfect carrots in thin slices, then with a vegetable cutter cut them in fancy shapes. Put them in a kettle of boiling, unsalted water, cook gently for one hour, drain and cool. At serving-time arrange them neatly on lettuce leaves, cover with French dressing, and serve.
10. A Simple Russian Salad
Line a salad-bowl with crisp lettuce leaves. Put over one or two tomatoes that have been peeled and chopped fine. Add a mashed anchovy to the recipe for French dressing, pour it over the salad, mix, and serve.
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