Chapter VI: Part 6

When planting time comes, each plant should go out alongside fence or wall, or along the paths, dodged in among the other crops. To those in the open, where wall or fence does not afford support, stout five-foot stakes must be provided. There must be no mistake about this; the stakes are to be driven a good foot into the ground, as, if the tomatoes go on well, they will have to support many pounds’ weight of fruit. The tomatoes must be watered for a week or so after planting out, and until rain has relieved the gardener from this duty, and the plants have settled in.

As they grow the plants must be tied to the stakes, and the side shoots be rubbed out twice a week. The aim is to keep the plants to one stem carrying three good bunches of fruit. To facilitate watering in dry weather, the plants should have been set in little cup-shaped depressions in the ground. Be careful only to remove the axillary side shoots, and not the flowering bunches, which are not axillary to a leaf. This dis-budding is a pleasant enough job, except that the tomato juice stains the fingers a deep orange; provide against this with gloves or abundant soap and water.

At the beginning of August, when three good trusses of fruit are set on each plant, nip out the top of the leader, and do not allow the plants to grow any more or throw more flower. Force them to concentrate their attention upon perfecting the fruit already set. Remove with caution any leaves that overhang the fruit, and so intercept the full sunlight, but do not by any means strip the leaves. It is unnecessary to allow the fruit to completely ripen on the plants, but as soon as they show colour they may be gathered and laid out in dryness and cleanliness, under the lights of a frame or near the glass roof of the tool-shed. This will save the plants a certain effort, and will promote the interests of the fruit still coming towards maturity. When the shorter days of September come in, and the sun perceptibly loses his power, the remaining fruit may be gathered and hung up in bunches on the stalks on which it grew, to come to what ripeness it may. At any rate these bunches will provide good store of tomatoes to fry with the morning bacon far into October.

If heat be available, seed sown in January and carried on in moderate heat will give fruit in May. The autumn crop may also be prolonged, but sun is needed to produce really ripe fruit, and it is questionable whether the amateur is well advised in striving to grow tomatoes after November has set in.

DISHES.

=Broiled Tomatoes.=--Cut the tomatoes in two, and leave the skins on. Place in a well-buttered frying pan, with the skin side down, dust with salt and pepper, and broil, without turning, over a moderate fire for ten minutes, or till tender. Lay them on a hot dish, and spread each piece over with melted butter. Or the tomatoes may be cut in thick slices, covered with olive oil, and then broiled, turning frequently.

=Scalloped Tomatoes.=--Season with salt and pepper some ripe tomatoes, that have been skinned and sliced. Put a layer of fine bread-crumbs in the bottom of a buttered pudding dish, then put a layer of the sliced tomatoes; sprinkle over them a little sugar and a few drops of onion juice, then a layer of bread-crumbs, and continue until the dish is full, having the last layer of bread-crumbs; put small pieces of butter here and there on the top, and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes. Serve hot in the same dish.

=Tomato Sandwiches.=--(1) Cut slices of thin bread and butter, and spread them with tomato pulp, seasoning with a little mustard, pepper, and salt, put another slice of bread and butter on the top, press the sandwich together, remove the crust, cut into neat fingers, and serve on a d’oyley, decorated with parsley.

(2) Slices of skinned ripe tomatoes, seasoned with a little vinegar, salt, and pepper, introduced instead of tomato pulp, make very good sandwiches.

=Tomato Fritters.=--(1) Cut peeled tomatoes into slices, season with pepper and salt. For the batter, beat up one egg, add a cupful of milk, a pinch of salt, one tablespoonful of olive oil, then sift in half a cupful of flour. Mix well till smooth and glossy. Allow to stand in a cool place for one hour; then add one teaspoonful of baking powder. Dip the slices of tomato into the batter, and place them gently in a frying basket, and fry in smoking-hot fat to a golden colour. Drain on white paper, dish, and garnish with fried parsley. Serve hot.

(2) Peel some fresh tomatoes--if they are very large, one for each person will be sufficient. Divide each tomato into thirds or quarters, and fry them slowly in butter, turning them as they brown. When nearly done, dust with salt and pepper, and sift a little flour over them--a trifle more than a heaped tablespoonful to four tomatoes. Finally, add a cupful of cream or rich milk, and simmer until the gravy thickens. Serve on slices of toasted bread.

=Baked Tomatoes stuffed with Macaroni.=--This dish is prepared from left-over macaroni, which has been baked with cheese in a white sauce. Remove the pulp from five large smooth tomatoes, chop finely, and mix with one cupful of macaroni. Season well with salt and pepper. Fill the tomato cases, cover with buttered bread-crumbs and grated cheese, and bake until browned.

=Tomato Omelette.=--One cupful of bread-crumbs, with milk enough to barely cover; let them stand for half an hour. Brown a small onion and two cloves of garlic; when done, add half a pint of canned tomatoes, cook until smooth, seasoning with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Put a good-sized lump of butter in a large frying pan when hot, pour in five or six eggs, well beaten, and the soaked bread-crumbs, well beaten together and seasoned with pepper and salt. Cook until set, sprinkle with grated cheese, lay the tomato purée on the omelette, fold, and put in a quick oven for a minute. Serve at once.

=Baked Stuffed Tomatoes.=--Remove the insides from six tomatoes, mince, and add some chopped parsley, half a pint of grated nuts, two ounces of bread-crumbs, pepper and salt to taste, and one egg. Fill the tomatoes with this mixture, and bake for half an hour, first placing a small piece of butter on each tomato.

=Tomatoes à la Noisette= (_Mrs. B. C. Stephenson’s Recipe_).--Scald six ripe tomatoes in boiling water, skin them, and bake them in a buttered sauté pan; then pass them through a wire sieve; chop two shallots up finely, and fry them in an ounce of butter; add two ounces of peeled and chopped walnuts, a dessertspoonful of chopped parsley, an ounce of bread-crumbs, and an ounce of grated cheese, and the tomato purée. Stir this over a quick fire, season with salt, pepper, and cayenne, beat two eggs well into the mixture, and keep stirring until set. Spread this on a round of hot buttered toast, cover with grated cheese, and serve hot.

=Tomato Sauce.= _See_ Sauces.

=Tomato Soup.= _See_ Soups.

=Tomato Salads.= _See_ Salads.

=Tomatoes au Gratin.=--Blanch the tomatoes, skin them, and place in a well-buttered fireproof dish. Mix one cupful of tomato sauce with one dessertspoonful of curry powder or paste and one heaped tablespoonful of red currant jelly. Boil it up for eight minutes, season the tomatoes, and pour the prepared sauce over them. Sprinkle with grated cheese and fine bread-crumbs and a little melted butter, and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes. Serve in a ring of plain boiled rice.

=Panned Tomatoes.=--To pan tomatoes, cut the tomatoes into halves, place them in a baking pan, skin side down, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, and put in the centre of each a tiny bit of butter. Bake slowly until soft. Take up, and add to the liquor in the pan one pint of milk. Moisten two level tablespoonfuls of flour with a little cold milk, add it to the pan, and stir constantly until boiling; add a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of pepper, and pour it over the tomatoes. Garnish with squares of toast, and serve.

=Tomato Rarebit.=--Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into the chafing dish, and, when melted, add two tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir until well blended; then pour on gradually, while stirring constantly, three-fourths of a cupful of cream, and as soon as the mixture begins to thicken, add three-fourths of a cupful of stewed and strained tomatoes, mixed with one-eighth of a teaspoonful of soda; then add two cupfuls of soft mild cheese, cut in small pieces, and two eggs, slightly beaten. Season to taste.

=Tomato Aspic Salad.=--To one pint of strained tomatoes add one scant teaspoonful of salt, a few grains of cayenne pepper, half a teaspoonful of onion juice, and half an ounce of gelatine. Let it stand for half an hour, then bring to the boiling point; put into small moulds to harden. Serve on lettuce leaves with a spoonful of mayonnaise. This will serve six persons.

=Creole Tomato Eggs.=--Cook a can of tomatoes with one green pepper and a little salt until the tomatoes are reduced by half; then pour the tomatoes on to five rounds of buttered toast, and place on each of these one poached egg, and keep hot. Meanwhile melt a heaped tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan over the fire, and allow it to get brown; then add one tablespoonful of either lemon juice or vinegar. Let it just come to the boil, and pour it over the eggs, seasoning them with salt and pepper.

=Tomato Relish.=--To one peck of tomatoes, rather finely chopped, four cupfuls of chopped celery, eight onions, chopped rather finely, eight small peppers, cut into thin slices, two pounds of brown sugar, one cupful of salt, two ounces of white mustard seed, two quarts of vinegar, and one tablespoonful of grated horse-radish. Cook all together, and drain some of the juice from the tomatoes. Mix thoroughly, and boil for a quarter of an hour; put in glass jars, and keep in a cool dark place.

TURNIP (_Brassica rapa. Cruciferæ_).

For the small garden, this may be looked upon as one of the minor vegetables, for which there is no great demand. The smaller, quickly growing sorts are the varieties to select, as they occupy the ground for a shorter time, and are more tender and less coarse in flavour than the grosser kinds.

A sowing may be made in April of such turnip as Early Six Weeks in a drill alongside a row of peas or broad beans. The seed must be thinly sown, and black cotton must be stretched above to provide against the attentions of the chaffinch. As soon as the plants are in the second leaf they must be singled, and later thinned to four inches in the row.

The autumn sowing of main-crop turnips may be made about mid-July; also a quick-growing kind may be sown again. The gardener must be prepared to repeat this sowing if the turnip fly play havoc with his crop during dry weather, and on this account it is not well to thin too drastically until the plants have really started to grow. A second sowing about the 12th of August will give a good chance of partially grown plants to stand through the winter, and give in early spring a few dishes of that delicious green, turnip tops.

TURNIP DISHES.

=To Boil Turnips= (_Garden, White_).--Wash thoroughly, put into clean water, peel, and throw into cold water. Put into a saucepan of boiling salted water for half an hour; if tender, drain and dish them on a drainer, pour over white sauce, or Béchamel sauce.

=To Boil Turnips= (_Swedes, Field Grown_).--Prepare as above, then cut in quarter and halve these, making the size uniform, boil in salted water for half an hour, drain, and mash them with a little butter and a very little hot milk, pepper, and salt. Pile up, and serve hot.

=Turnip Entremets.=--Having peeled your turnips, fry them in butter, and when they are coloured, add a good tablespoonful of flour, stir well, and then add some stock, and a very little sugar; cook them over a slow fire, dish them up, and cover them with the sauce.

=Boiled Turnip Tops.=--Wash the greens thoroughly, and boil for half an hour in salted water with a tiny piece of soda, drain, and season with salt and pepper, add a little butter; or, after draining, rub through a sieve and mix with a little brown sauce.

=Baked Turnips.=--Peel, parboil, and cut into slices, put into a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with seasoned crumbs, moisten with milk or stock, and bake until brown.

=Cream Turnips.=--Cut boiled turnips into dice, reheat in a cream or white sauce, season with salt, pepper, and sugar, and serve on toast. Add a little grated nutmeg if desired. Brown sauce may be used instead of white.

=Turnip Charlotte.=--Boil white turnips until tender, drain and rub them through a sieve. To one cupful of pulp add a quarter of a cupful of thick cream, salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to season, and the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs. Turn into a buttered mould, and bake in a pan of hot water, until the centre is firm. Turn out and serve with white or Béchamel sauce.

=Turnip Croquettes.=--Wash, peel, and slice turnips, boil them in salted water until very soft. Drain, press out the liquid, and wring dry in a cloth. Season with salt and pepper, mix to a smooth paste with the beaten yolk of an egg. Cool, shape into croquettes, dip in egg and then in crumbs, and fry in deep fat.

=Turnips with Sweet Potatoes.=--Boil and mash separately two yellow turnips and four large sweet potatoes, season with salt, pepper, and butter, mix, and beat until very light, put into a buttered baking dish with melted butter, and bake for twenty minutes.

=Glazed Turnips.=--(1) Boil small peeled turnips in rich stock to cover, for half an hour, add a pinch of sugar, drain, reduce the stock by rapid boiling. Brown the turnips in the oven, basting with the stock, and serve very hot.

(2) Peel small turnips, and boil for ten minutes in salted water to cover. Drain and sauté in butter, sprinkle with sugar, add a little stock and cook until tender. Season with salt, pepper, and a little cinnamon and nutmeg (if liked). Thicken the gravy with flour browned with butter.

=Purée of Turnips.=--Peel, slice, and boil until soft in salted water, rub through a sieve, season with pepper and salt, and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour cooked in butter. Add half a cupful of hot cream, in which a bit of soda has been dissolved, bring to the boil, take from the fire and add a well beaten egg. Season with a little onion juice if desired.

=Stuffed Turnips.=--Boil five turnips until soft. Drain, cut a slice from the top of each and scoop out the pulp. Mash the pulp smoothly, season with salt, pepper, and butter, sprinkle with flour, moisten with cream and add the well beaten yolk of an egg. Fill the shells, and put on the tops. Brush with beaten egg, and brown in the oven.

=Turnips au Gratin.=--Prepare according to directions given for Cauliflower au gratin.

WITLOEF. _See_ Chicory.

VEGETABLE MARROW (_Cucurbita ovifera._ Ord. _Cucurbitaceæ_).

In its early stages the cultivation of marrows proceeds on the same lines as that of cucumbers. There are several varieties to select from, but the long green marrow is probably the best in flavour, and gives a large return.

The seed should be sown in pots in March or April, and must be grown in the hotbed. The plants must be kept well watered and warm, and in May they should be put out on richly prepared ground under cold frames. Every precaution should be taken to protect them from late frosts.

The vegetable marrow is hardier than the cucumber, and in June, plants not put out earlier may be planted in well-prepared ground in the open. Water must be given freely during dry weather, both to the plants in frames and to those outside.

As the vines grow, the tops should be pinched out to induce them to break back. And this pinching out should be continued, the shoot being pinched above each set fruit. This results in short-jointed plants well crowded with fruit. The lights from the frames may be removed about the 14th of June.

It is a mistake to let the fruit attain its full size before cutting. Small half-grown marrows are more tender and of far better flavour than large, hard fruit, which are only suitable for pickling.

DISHES.

=Boiled Vegetable Marrow.=--Peel some marrows, quarter them, and remove the seeds, put them in boiling salted water for one hour, or even longer, and boil them till tender, serve with white buttered sauce. It is not easy to over-cook a marrow, they are often under-cooked, and are then very indigestible.

=Stuffed Vegetable Marrow.=--Peel a medium-sized marrow, and remove the seeds, keeping the marrow whole. Prepare the following stuffing:

Two or three chopped and fried onions, six ounces blanched nuts or almonds (these should be ground, and also fried with the onions), six ounces of bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, one chopped hard-boiled egg, and one raw egg to bind the whole. Fill the marrow with this mixture, and steam for half an hour, to partly cook the marrow. Now place in a baking tin, cover with bread-crumbs, place some small pieces of butter on the top, and bake for another half hour, until the marrow is quite soft, and a nice rich brown. Serve with brown gravy.

=Stuffed Vegetable Marrow No. 2.=--Cut a marrow in half. Scoop out the pith and pips. Stuff with the following mixture:

One cupful of bread-crumbs, any ground nuts, a little sage, an ounce of boiled onions well chopped, one ounce of nutter, seasoned and mixed with a well-beaten egg. Tie the two halves with string, and bake for forty minutes in a well-greased tin. Baste frequently with nutter, and serve with brown gravy.

=Stuffed Vegetable Marrow No. 3.=--Having peeled the marrow, cut it in half, lengthways, and remove the seeds, fry some mushrooms lightly in butter, add bread-crumbs and seasoning to taste, fill the marrow with this force meat, tie the two halves together with a string, and steam them gently for about two hours over boiling water, and serve with white sauce.

=Vegetable Marrow Fillets.=--Cut the marrow into fillets. Peel, cook, and allow to get quite cold. Dip into frying batter, and cook in boiling fat. Serve with any cheese dish.

=Purée of Vegetable Marrow.=--Take six small vegetable marrows, and peel, cut in slices and put in a stewpan, with two ounces of butter. Set over a quick fire for half an hour, stirring constantly. Add two and a half pints of stock, season with pepper and salt, and boil for twenty minutes. Pass through a sieve, return to the saucepan, add three tablespoonfuls of cream. Boil for a few minutes, and serve with croûtons.

=Mashed Vegetable Marrow.=--After boiling the marrows in salted water, rub them through a fine sieve, pour the purée into a stewpan, in which there is a little melted butter, add a little cream and a little pepper, stir it over the fire for five or six minutes, dredging in a little flour to thicken it slightly. It takes half an hour to cook.

=Vegetable Marrow with Cheese.=--Peel some green marrows, and cut them in quarters (after taking out the seeds), put them in a sauté pan, with an ounce of butter, pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg, put the pan on the fire for a quarter of an hour, shaking it from time to time, pour a little cream over them, and a teaspoonful of grated Parmesan cheese, put the marrow into an oblong dish, cover with bread-crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, put it for a few minutes into a hot oven, and serve with piquant sauce.

SALAD PLANTS--BRITISH AND CONTINENTAL.

_By W. F. Giles (of Messrs. Sutton & Sons, Reading)._

Salads just now are recommended by the medical profession, besides being a popular dish, and so I cannot do better than give Mr. Giles’s list of plants for this purpose, though practically nearly every vegetable grown can be used for cooked or uncooked salads, the composition of which depends on the taste of the consumer.

=Australian or Golden Cress.=--Belongs to the same class as the garden cress, but the leaves are broad and almost yellow in colour, and is cultivated in exactly the same way.

=Belle Isle or American Land Cress.=--It resembles somewhat the watercress; in flavour, however, it is more pungent, but it is a useful plant as a component of salads.

=Cabbage Lettuce.=--Often seen in many gardens in the spring.

=Celeriac--Turnip-rooted Celery.=--Is not much in request in this country, although in France and America it is largely grown. It is chiefly used for soup flavouring and served cooked, although it can of course be included in salad. There are white, golden, and green forms.

=Chives--Chenopodium Amaranticolor.=--This is a plant which has only recently been heard of in England. It grows to a height of five or six feet, and produces a large quantity of succulent leaves, which are green in colour but marked with purple. In habit of growth it resembles the Orache or mountain spinach, but continues in use for a longer period. The seed can be sown in pots in the spring and transplanted, and the plants will continue to bear young leaves all through the summer and well into the autumn. A little of it can be added to the salad bowl, but it should be used sparingly.

=Lettuce.=--One of the most useful salad plants.

=Mercury or Good King Henry.=--Although usually cooked like spinach, it can be eaten in a mixed salad.

=Orache or Mountain Spinach=, of which there are the white and red varieties.--The leaves, which are large, can be used either boiled as spinach, or mixed with other ingredients as a salad.

=Pimpinella or Salad Burnet.=--Burnet is an old-fashioned herb, and is called by the French and Italians “Pimpinella.” In Italy it is so highly prized that they have a proverb which says:

“That salad is neither good or fair,
If Pimpinella be not there.”

It has a very distinct flavour, and is quite easily grown. The plant is perennial, very hardy, and will grow almost anywhere. It will, in fact, continue green during the greater part of the year, and may be used in the winter when little other salad is to be had. Seed is usually sown in spring and summer, and the leaves, which are produced in great abundance, are tender, and used as salad.

=Poirée, Swiss Chard, or Leaf Beet.=--I have now enumerated most of the cultivated plants which are used for salad purposes either in this country or on the Continent, but still the list is not complete. There are various wild ones which are sometimes used; in fact it is said that the poorer French and Italians gather almost anything green and tender and use them as salads. Such things as the tops of nettles, the leaves of the wood sorrel, sweet cicely, and of the cuckooflower or ladies’ smock, of scurvy grass, nasturtiums, and of salad rocket or wild cress, besides shoots of hops, of vines, and asparagus, are all used to a greater or lesser extent in the great salad-eating countries. In addition, the foliage of salsify, tansy, borage, and caraway, the shoots of sage, and the leaves of balm, and even the pods of young peas, are sometimes brought into use; in fact, there almost seems no end to the supply of tender material which can be eaten dressed with salt, vinegar, and oil, as a good salad should be.

The great art of preparing a salad from these lesser-known plants is to so judiciously mix them that the taste of one may not overpower the remainder. The more popular subjects, such as lettuce or endive, are used as a basis, and with the addition of a little of one or more of the other plants I have mentioned, an agreeable mixture may be obtained to suit all palates. One special point, however, which is often overlooked in this country, is the fact that a salad should always be served freshly made. It is a common experience in Continental hotels or restaurants to see the waiter mixing the oil and vinegar and adding them to the salad immediately before placing it on the table. There are one or two points which are not seen to in this country. First, supposing the salad is to have lettuce for the foundation. The leaves should be torn, and not cut. If not very dirty they are simply wiped, but should it be necessary to wash them, they must be afterwards drained and tossed lightly on a soft cloth to get rid of every drop of water. In this country salading is often put to soak, thus making the leaves sodden, and being imperfectly dried, a good deal of the water goes into the salad bowl, which, according to the Continental idea, immediately spoils the mixture. Next the leaves are selected and put into the salad bowl whole, and not shredded up, as is usually done here. No steel knife should be allowed to touch them. They should then be turned about with a wooden fork whilst being sprinkled with good salad oil. Only sufficient oil should be added to moisten every leaf well. Vinegar must be added in very small quantities, the object being to give merely an appetising flavour, and not to make an acid mixture. The thing to avoid is too much dressing; if any liquid stands at the bottom of the bowl, it will cause the leaves to become sodden and discoloured. Any additional flavouring required can be obtained by adding to the lettuce small quantities of such things as finely chopped chives, tarragon, chervil, burnet, shallot, or almost any of the plants I have referred to, and a little salt and pepper to taste completes the salad.

=Purslane--Tarragon--Curled Chervil.=--Known as a herb rather than a salad plant, but is useful for the latter purpose.

=Radishes--Winter Radishes--Tomatoes--Cucumbers--Celery--Beet--Endive--Onions--Mustard and Cress--Watercress--Chicory= (or _Barbe de capucin_)=--Witloef--Blanched Dandelion--Finnochio= (or _Florence Fennel_)=--Corn Salad or Mache--Rampion= (rampions are eaten raw like radishes, or boiled and cut up into salads).

SALAD DISHES.

=Canadian Potato Salad.=--Slice some cold boiled potatoes, add a few almonds blanched and quartered, and a very small quantity of chopped onions. Pour over this any good salad dressing, and garnish with chopped parsley, beetroot, and slices of lemon.

=Celery and Nut Salad.=--Take two heads of celery, salad dressing (two parts of oil and one of vinegar, salt and pepper), eighteen to twenty walnuts, one tablespoonful of cream, mayonnaise dressing, and paprika pepper.

Trim and wash the celery clean, cut into two-inch slices, and shred finely, or if preferred, cut into dice. Put the cut celery into a bowl, and pour over enough salad dressing to season it well. Cover over, and let it stand for one or two hours. Shell and skin the walnuts; cut them into shreds, or julienne strips. Now add the cream and mayonnaise dressing to the celery. Mix the walnuts with this, and dress neatly in a salad bowl. Sprinkle a little paprika over the surface, garnish to taste, and serve.

=Cheese Salad.=--For a small luncheon dish, cheese salad can be quickly made by putting thinly sliced or grated cheese in the middle of a dish, surrounding it with lettuce, endive, or cress, and covering all with a good salad dressing.--_Helpful Hints_, by Mrs. C. W. EARLE.

=Cherry and Banana Salad.=--Take equal portions of bananas and double that quantity of strawberries. Mix a pint of strawberries when hulled with a teacupful of caster sugar, mash them well. Pick the cherries and stone them with a silver knife, slice the bananas, arrange them over the mashed strawberries and sprinkle with sugar. Let all stand together for an hour on ice if convenient.

=Cherry and Strawberry Salad.=--Stone half a pound of cherries and put them in a salad bowl with two ounces of caster sugar over them, put the same quantity of hulled strawberries over them, and another two ounces of sugar; squeeze the juice of half a lemon over all. Stand on ice for an hour before serving.

=Cherry Salad.=--Stone a quarter of a pound of cherries with a pointed silver knife, as steel would spoil their colour. Arrange crisp lettuce leaves, lightly turn with the fingers in a salad bowl, keeping the heart of the lettuce for the centre, where it will stand up with a cherry in the middle. Place the cherries at regular intervals among the leaves, add a few quarters of peeled tomatoes, pour over a good mayonnaise dressing, and serve at once.

=Cleopatra Salad.=--Take any cooked vegetables. Lima beans, corn, peas, beetroot, being especially eligible; have all the ingredients very cold. Cut into neat pieces, and dish on lettuce leaves, either the crimped or brown edge being decorative. Serve with a French dressing.

=Cleveland Salad.=--Four cupfuls of boiling water, three lemons, one ounce of gelatine, four cucumbers, one quarter of a can of red peppers, salt to taste, and paprika as desired.

Make a hot and sweet lemonade; add a pinch of salt and paprika. Dissolve the gelatine in a cupful of water. When it is dissolved mix it with the lemonade. Slice the cucumbers very thin, and add the peppers. Put both in a large mould, and pour the lemon gelatine over all. Set in the refrigerator overnight. Serve with mayonnaise on a bed of lettuce.

=Clover-leaf Salad.=--Cook one cupful of English walnut meat for ten minutes, with a sliced onion, three peppercorns, and a blade of mace, in slightly salted water. Drain and pour cold water through, then take off the thin skin. Cut enough celery into thin crossway slices to fill one cup, using the crisp white stalk. Mix the celery and nuts, and put a spoonful into the centre of three crisp lettuce leaves, put a spoonful of mayonnaise on the top, and serve.

=Cold Potato Salad.=--Cut four cold steamed potatoes into slices. Shred finely the tender parts of some celery. Chop very finely four sprigs of parsley and shallot; mix, and place in the salad bowl. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs and serve with dressing.

=Cranberry and Nut Salad.=--Pick over and wash one pint of cranberries, and cook them with one cupful of sugar and one cupful of water till tender; remove from the fire; press the juice through the sieve; soften one tablespoonful of leaf gelatine in one-fourth of a cupful of cold water, add the hot cranberry juice, and stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Pour a layer into a dish wet with cold water; add a layer of diced celery and chopped nut meats as soon as the jelly becomes firm enough to hold them, repeat, having the last layer of jelly. When cold, cut in squares, and serve with mayonnaise, garnishing with sprigs of parsley or with white celery tops.--_Pictorial Review._

=Cucumber Salad.=--One cucumber, half a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley, vinegar, salad oil, salt and pepper.

Peel the cucumber finely, cut it into very thin slices, and place them in a salad bowl or dish. Mix two parts of salad oil with one part of vinegar, add the parsley, with salt and pepper to taste. Stir well, and pour over the cucumber.

=Egg Salad.=--Boil six eggs for twelve minutes, put them in cold water at once to cool, then shell them and chop finely. Add two small boiled potatoes chopped equally fine, mix and sprinkle with Worcestershire sauce, toss them so that the sauce will get all through the mixture. Wash a head of lettuce, and arrange a few crisp leaves on separate plates. Divide the chopped mixture into six parts, and place them in the centre of separate plates. Make the French dressing by mixing six tablespoonfuls of olive oil, three of vinegar, one saltspoonful of salt, and half a saltspoonful pepper, and serve with rye-bread sandwiches.

Green apples, uncooked, cut into thin slices may be served with a leaf or two of lettuce, or as a substitute for lettuce. They contain a large proportion of potash salts, and make a palatable salad.

=Endive Salad.=--Endive, cress, shredded celery, boiled beetroot, and salad dressing. Separate the endive into tufts. Toss these in the salad dressing, pile them high in a salad bowl, and garnish with celery, cress, and beetroot.

=Everyman’s Salad.=--Thoroughly wash and pick over the tender leaves of young spinach, dandelion, sorrel, nasturtium, wild thyme, oxalis, shepherd’s purse, &c., chop or shred; mix in a bowl with a dressing made by whisking up a little olive oil with the fresh juice of oranges, lemons, limes, or grape-fruit; add a little chopped celery; decorate with flowers of nasturtium. To give proteid value, add flaked walnuts, or ground hazelnuts, or home-made curd cheese.

=Florida Salad.=--Cut slices from the stem ends of green peppers, and remove the seeds. Refill with grape-fruit, peeled and cut into cubes; add the tenderest stalks of celery cut into small pieces, and finely chopped nut meats, allowing twice as much grape-fruit as celery and one-third as many nut meats as grape-fruit. Arrange in nests of endive, and serve with mayonnaise dressing.--_Buffalo Commercial._

=French Salad.=--(1) Put the tender leaves of lettuce into cold water and wash them carefully, wipe them dry, and stand them in a circle in a salad bowl. Sprinkle with half a teaspoonful of tarragon, the same of chervil, of parsley, and of chives, and pour the following sauce over them:

Mix in a cup, a tablespoonful of pure olive oil, one very small teaspoonful of salt, one saltspoonful of pepper, and stir well. Add two more tablespoonfuls of oil, and one of vinegar; if liked, add two drops of onion juice. The salad must not be mixed until wanted; it can be garnished with small radishes, or nasturtium flowers.

(2) Take equal parts of lettuce, shred celery, watercress, small salad, beetroot, and spring radishes. Thoroughly wash them for a few minutes, and when drained in a cloth gather up the four corners into the right hand, and shake out all the water. Next, put the salad in a bowl, season with equal proportions of oil and vinegar, two or three chopped green onions, pepper and salt; mix and serve.

(3) Cut two or three ripe tomatoes in slices, break in small pieces three heads of lettuce, and dish them up, in a circular row, in a salad bowl or dish; fill the centre with either small Windsor beans, French beans, garbanças or Spanish peas, pickled button onions, large green peas, or haricot beans; all or any of these, to suit the convenience and taste, should be gently mixed with some mayonnaise sauce.

=Frozen Salad (Tomatoes).=--Cook tomatoes in just enough water to cover the bottom of a pan, then press the vegetables through a sieve; add to the hot pulp a little extract of onion or grated onion, half a teaspoonful of minced parsley, a teaspoonful of butter and celery salt, and paprika to taste; cool, then freeze as for ice-cream. Add a cupful of whipped cream to the mixture, then continue freezing. Spoon into lettuce cups, turning a tablespoonful of French dressing over each service. On each dish place wafers, and a ball of cheese rolled in salted nuts.

=Fruit Salad.=--Half a tin of pineapple chunks, four oranges, four bananas, the rind of two lemons, the juice of one small one, some crystallised cherries, almonds, and desiccated cocoanut. Cut up all the fruit into small dice, add the rind and juice of the lemon and chopped almonds, and three tablespoonfuls of sugar, or more; allow this to stand for an hour or two, for the flavours to amalgamate. Before serving, sprinkle over it the cocoanut, and garnish with cherries, and discard the lemon peal.

_N.B._--Any sort of fruit that is in season may be used, but tinned pineapple always improves this salad.--Dr. JOSIAH OLDFIELD, _Fruitarian Diet Recipes_.

=Green Salad.=--Take two heads of lettuce, one pennyworth of cress, half a cucumber (finely sliced), one quarter of a Spanish onion (sliced), two hard-boiled eggs (chopped or sliced), vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, salad dressing as recipe mentioned below. Wash, dry, and cut up lettuce and cress, add onion, and mix all thoroughly, then add seasoning; pour a little dressing at the bottom of the dish, and pile the salad high up in the centre; garnish with the sliced egg and sliced cucumber, then pour the dressing over.

=Hot Potato Salad.=--Cut boiled potatoes in very thin slices. Cover the bottom of a baking dish with potatoes, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with finely chopped celery, then with finely chopped parsley. Mix four tablespoonfuls of cider vinegar, and four tablespoonfuls of olive oil. Add a slice of lemon cut one-third of an inch thick. Bring to the boiling point, pour over the potatoes, cover, and let it stand in a moderate oven till thoroughly heated. If possible, serve in the same dish in which the salad is heated.

=Lettuce Salad.=--Use only the tender leaves; wash well in cold water, wipe them dry, then break with the fingers into small pieces. Take two or three yolks of hard-boiled eggs beaten up with one tablespoonful of pure olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Two more tablespoonfuls of oil must be added gradually, and one of white wine vinegar. Mix well, and garnish the salad bowl with nasturtium flowers.

=Lettuce Salad (2).=--Take the hearts of two lettuces, wash well, and dry in a cloth. Place in a salad bowl with two hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters; salt and pepper to taste. Pour over two tablespoonfuls of oil and one of vinegar, mix well. The vinegar must never be put over the lettuce until it is wanted. It will spoil the salad if left standing, before it is used.

=Mexican Salad.=--Chop finely the meat of one dozen English walnuts. Wash, and place lettuce leaves round the salad bowl, and over these in the bottom of the bowl arrange two peeled bananas cut into thin slices. Mix the chopped walnuts with mayonnaise dressing, and spread over the bananas with a few bits of the half leaves of lettuce. Make another layer of bananas and dressing. Serve a spoonful of the salad on two nice leaves of lettuce; put a dash of paprika over the whole.

=Mixed Salad.=--Take one small cooked cauliflower, one cooked beetroot, one small cucumber, two or three firm cooked potatoes, two ripe tomatoes, one crisp lettuce, half a pint mayonnaise sauce or salad dressing. Divide the cauliflower into small sprays, cut the beetroot and potatoes into fine strips, slice the cucumber and tomatoes. Place all these ingredients in layers in a salad bowl, piling somewhat high in the centre, and season each layer with salt and pepper. Pour over the salad dressing, and garnish with a border of lettuce previously well washed and dried.

=Neufchâtel Cheese Salad.=--Line a bowl with lettuce, and if you like the flavour of onion rub each leaf with a cut onion; put the cheese through a fruit-press or wire-strainer over the lettuce. When ready to serve, pour over one half cup of French dressing. If you have a few pieces of red beet, it is very attractive to garnish the edge of the dish with beets. This makes a very tasty salad.--_Philadelphia, North American._

=Normandy Salad.=--Stew gently in their own liquor a small can of French peas. Season with a little salt and pepper, and add a pinch of sugar. When the peas have absorbed all the liquor allow them to cool. Chop half a pound of English walnuts, and mix with the peas. Pour over them half a cup of mayonnaise. Serve with lettuce.

=Orange and Lettuce Salad.=--Two oranges peeled and freed from pith and pips and sliced in rounds to every three heads of well-washed lettuce (the latter should be torn, not cut into pieces of suitable size); allow half a small teaspoonful of finely minced shallot for every three heads of lettuce, and add a dressing composed of two tablespoonfuls of salad oil to one of tarragon or chilli vinegar; then add pepper and salt to taste, and serve.

=Russian Orange and Cucumber Salad.=--Allow a thinly sliced orange to each large cucumber, slice the latter; then mix, and use the dressing indicated in the foregoing recipe.

=Orange and Pear Salad.=--Take six sweet oranges and six pears, peel the oranges, free them from pith, quarter them, take out the pips without wasting the juice, and reserve any juice which has escaped; place them in a deep bowl; peel the pears thinly, cut each pear into six lengthwise pieces, core them, add them to the oranges; add the orange juice and a small sherry glassful of brandy, and leave in a cool place for an hour; then pour over them the contents of a sixpenny jar of orange syrup; cover the whole with whipped cream, but do not sweeten it; sprinkle the top thickly with chopped blanched almonds and pistachio-nuts, and serve at once. When pears are not to hand, grapes, or very ripe apples make a good substitute, but pears undoubtedly give the best result. When not to be served immediately this salad should be placed upon ice, or, failing this, stand it in a bowl of cold water until it is required.

=Picnic Salad.=--Another popular combination for salads consists of oranges and bananas, apples and celery, cut in slices and dressed.

=Pilgrim Salad.=--Peel and cut tomatoes in half-inch slices, cut out rounds from the centre of each with a sharp-pointed knife, and insert four or five cooked asparagus tips. Lay them on crisp lettuce leaves. Cut the centres of the tomatoes into cubes, and put these with several stoned olives on one side of each plate. Put half a cupful of olive oil into a pitcher, the strained juice of half a lemon, the strained juice of half an orange, one teaspoonful of grated onion pulp, a quarter of a teaspoonful of paprika, one teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, a quarter of a teaspoonful of mustard, and one teaspoonful of finely chopped parsley. Shake until thick and creamy, and pour over the portions of salad.

=Pineapple and Grape-fruit Salad.=--Mix a cupful of chopped pineapple with a shredded grape-fruit, and half a cupful of nuts blanched and chopped, or celery. Add some preserved cherries, and serve on lettuce, with mayonnaise dressing.

=Plum Salad.=--Pare and stone some small plums, and fill the cavity in each with chopped nuts; arrange on a serving dish in circles of sliced bananas and on the top of each plum, and on each of the banana slices put a little whipped egg dressing. Serve immediately with a garnish of crisp cress.

=Salad à la Monte Carlo.=--Four ripe firm tomatoes, two truffles, half a pint of cooked asparagus points, six small artichoke bottoms cooked, two lettuces, mayonnaise dressing, krona pepper. Blanch and peel the tomatoes, and cut them into slices; cut the truffles into thin slices, and the artichoke bottoms into shreds; wash and trim the lettuces; mix all ingredients together in a basin, season with pepper and salt, and a very little vinegar and oil; dress the whole in a pyramidal form on a deep dish, or in a shallow salad bowl; garnish round the base with groups of asparagus points. Pour a little mayonnaise sauce seasoned with krona pepper over the whole, and serve a sauce-boat of this dressing with the salad.

=Salad à la Princesse.=--Make with green vegetables such as peas, asparagus tops, French beans, capers, and gherkins. The vegetables are mixed and seasoned with salt, pepper, oil, tarragon vinegar and chopped chervil, and served with a border of apple jelly, or of hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters. It can also be served in a salad bowl without any garnish.--C. HERMAN SEEN, _How to Cook Vegetables_.

=Salad Dressing.=--Put the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs into a basin, add one teaspoonful of caster sugar, one teaspoonful of mustard, one quarter of a teaspoonful of salt and pepper; mix well, and add (slowly stirring all the time) one quarter of a pint of cream and one tablespoonful of vinegar.

=Salads that Cost Nothing=, made of dandelions, sorrel, and nettles. The latter are very pleasant to the taste, and if the young shoots are steamed or boiled, can hardly be distinguished from spinach, also they have valuable medicinal qualities.

Then the young shoots of brambles form another constituent for a salad, as well as their fruit for jams and jellies, and with a small outlay of one penny and a little trouble you can grow a crop of nasturtiums. Not only will the flowers be useful for decorating your table, but you have an excellent vegetable. Nasturtium leaves will add a piquancy to your summer salads, and in the autumn you can pick some of the seeds and make a tasty pickle with them. Put them in salt and water for twenty-four hours, dry them, place them in a bottle, boil a teaspoonful of peppercorns in half a pint of vinegar, strain, and when cold pour on to the seeds and seal the bottle. The rest of the seeds you can leave to ripen in order to provide yourself with next year’s crop.

A salad bag is a good thing to keep lettuce crisp and fresh. Remove the outer leaves, spread the inner leaves and wash carefully, and hang to drip dry in a square of cheesecloth or white mosquito netting knotted together by its four corners. Suspend this from its own nail above a sink, or in the lower part of the refrigerator if preferred, though this adds little if anything to the crispness of the lettuce dried in a bag.

=Sheldon Salad.=--One can of pineapple, four oranges, two bananas, half a pound of Malaga grapes, and a quarter of a pound of candied cherries. Cut the pineapples into small squares, seed the oranges, and cut them up finely, seed the grapes, and cut them and the cherries in halves; slice the bananas very thin. Serve on lettuce leaves, and pour over the following sauce--the juice of the pineapple, one cup of sugar, one tablespoonful of cornflour, one cup of walnuts cut up finely, and a cup and a half of water. Mix the cornflour with a little of the water, and add the pineapple juice, sugar, and the remainder of the water. Boil until thick, and after it is cold add the nuts and glacé cherries. This salad may be put together and frozen.

=Stuffed Prunes, with Lettuce.=--Let choice prunes soak overnight in cold water. Steam until tender. Slit down one side, and remove the stone from each; grate cheese; add a little finely chopped red pepper or a dash of paprika, and enough mayonnaise dressing to mix the cheese to a soft smooth consistency. Fill the open space in the centre of each prune with the cheese mixture. Serve with toasted crackers and lettuce salad, over which French dressing has been poured.

=Tomato Salad.=--Cut six good ripe tomatoes into rather thick slices, place them in a salad bowl with finely chopped parsley, and chervil sprinkled over them; put two saltspoonfuls of salt into a tablespoon, cover well over with white pepper, pour in sufficient tarragon vinegar, to fill the spoon. Stir carefully with the fork until the salt and pepper are dissolved, and sprinkle carefully over the tomatoes; then add two or three tablespoonfuls of the best salad oil.

=Welsh Onion Salad.=--Peel and slice two large Welsh onions, and two cucumbers; put them on ice for twenty minutes, then drain and dry them on a cloth. Arrange the slices of onion and cucumber alternately on a dish, pour some mayonnaise over them, and serve.

Cucumbers should, if possible, always be kept on ice, and never be put into salted water.

=Winter Salad.=--Cut up three boiled potatoes, one head of celery, one boiled beetroot, add a few leaves of blanched chicory and one spoonful of chopped parsley. Prepare the following sauce and pour over it, mix well before serving:--

Take four tablespoonfuls of cream, one tablespoonful of vinegar, a little pepper, one teaspoonful of salt; stir all these ingredients well, and pour over the salad. The vinegar must be added drop by drop, or it will curdle the cream.

MISCELLANEOUS SAUCES.

=A Good White Sauce for serving over Vegetables.=--Take one ounce of butter, two ounces of flour, a little pepper and salt, half a pint of milk, or milk mixed with water (not so good).

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, stir in the flour and the seasoning, then the liquid, stirring carefully all the time, allow it to boil for three minutes to thoroughly cook the flour; it should bubble with a thick sound, and break away from the side of the pan. When properly cooked this sauce will be as thick as rich cream, and will cling to the spoon. Time, ten minutes.

A little lemon juice may be added, if it is wanted to be slightly acid, or finely chopped parsley may be added, for serving with broad beans.

=Sauce Béchamel Maigre.=--Put in a small saucepan one pint of water and three eschalots, a carrot cut in slices, a little grated nutmeg, four whole peppercorns, bruised, a bunch of herbs, and a few mushrooms. Let them simmer for an hour or more. Put through a sieve.

Mix two tablespoonfuls of flour to a smooth paste with two tablespoonfuls of cream and one of butter, add a pint of boiling milk, put into a casserole, and stir carefully, adding the stock, previously prepared, and stirring all the time.

It may be kept hot in a bain-marie.

_Note._--If there be no bain-marie, put the preparation in a jam-pot inside a saucepan full of boiling water.

=Caper Sauce.=--Take a tablespoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of flour, one cup and a half of hot water, half a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and half a cupful of capers. Melt the butter, stir in the flour, and pour on the hot water gradually and season. Boil five minutes, and add the capers last of all.

=Celery Sauce.=--Wash the white part only of a head of celery, cut it up into rather large pieces; put it into a stewpan with just sufficient water to cover it, and simmer for thirty minutes, stir it occasionally, rub through a sieve; add three-quarters of a pint of melted butter, with pepper and salt; stir until it boils, and serve. Time, about an hour.

=Cold Horse-radish Sauce.=--Grate (but not scrape) the horse-radish; place it in a pickle bottle, with salt, pepper, and vinegar, and some thick cream, and a teaspoonful of sugar.

=Cranberry Cream.=--One pint of cream, one pound of sugar, one pint of water. Pick one pound of cranberries carefully, put them into a stewpan with the water and sugar, and cook slowly for about one hour until reduced nearly to a pulp. Stir from time to time during the process, and when sufficiently cooked turn into a dish to cool. Whip up the cream and mix with it, or heap on the top.

=Green Sauce for Summer.=--Chop up a few fine leaves of purslane, parsley, chive tops, a good deal of tarragon and borage. Prepare a white sauce which has been passed through a fine sieve; put the herbs in, and mix just before serving. It ought to look quite green when served.

(Both are recipes from Mrs. C. W. EARLE and Mrs. H. BRYAN, _Diet Difficulties_.)

=Hammerfield Sauce= (_Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower’s Recipe_).--Melt one dessertspoonful of red currant jelly in a basin, and add a tablespoonful of grated horse-radish, a little dry mustard, and the juice and the grated rind of one orange. Mix together thoroughly. If too hot, put less mustard.

=Hollandaise Sauce (Dutch Sauce).=--Beat half a cupful of butter to a cream, and add gradually the well-beaten yolks of two eggs, the juice of half a lemon, and pepper and salt to season; cook over boiling water until it begins to thicken, beating with an egg-beater. Add a cupful of hot water very carefully. Serve as soon as it is of the proper consistency.

=Hot Horse-radish Sauce.=--Peel a stick of horse-radish, grate (not scrape it), make a thickening of equal parts of butter and flour, one ounce. Moisten with stock sufficient to make a smooth sauce, not too thick. Directly it boils add two tablespoonfuls of grated horse-radish; let it cook for three minutes.

=Mayonnaise Sauce.=--Put the yolk of one egg (quite free from any white), half a teaspoonful of salt, and a pinch of cayenne, into a bowl standing in ice. Stir constantly, and add one cupful of pure olive oil, drop by drop. The goodness of the sauce depends upon adding the oil slowly, and beating well with a wooden spoon. When it begins to get thick, alternate a few drops of vinegar with the oil till you have put in three and a half tablespoonfuls of vinegar (lemon juice may be used instead). In the summer it is a good plan to mix the yolk of a hard-boiled egg with the raw one; the sauce is made more quickly and is less likely to curdle. A little tarragon vinegar may be used, but many people dislike it. The sauce when made should be as thick as rich cream.