Chapter C: H. Hamrick

=Lettuce Salad.=—Take a good-sized head of lettuce and pull the leaves apart. Wash them a moment in a little water, then shake off the water and dry the leaves in a napkin by taking hold of the four corners and shaking it. Examine them carefully, wipe off all grit, and reject all bruised leaves; place them in a salad-bowl large enough to dress them in nicely without scattering a part of them over the table. Mix one salt-spoonful of salt, one salt-spoonful of fresh ground pepper, and a dust of cayenne with a tablespoonful of oil in a salad spoon; pour this over the lettuce, and add two more tablespoonfuls of oil; next toss the salad lightly with a salad spoon and fork, and, lastly, add a tablespoonful of vinegar; toss it gently once or twice and send to table. _To be eaten at once._ Never cut lettuce. Should you wish to divide the leaves tear them apart gently. But it is not always necessary to tear the leaves, should they appear too large to eat gracefully. With the assistance of your knife you can wrap the leaf round the end of your fork so as to make a small ball of it, and eat it with a little more elegance than your neighbor, who is trying his level best to get the leaf into his mouth edgeways.

=Plain French Dressing.=—A plain French dressing is made of salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar, and nothing else. Three tablespoonfuls of oil to one of vinegar, salt-spoon heaping full of salt, an even salt-spoonful of pepper mixed with a little cayenne.

=Plain English Dressing.=—Same as plain French dressing, with a teaspoonful of made English mustard added.

=Bacon Dressing.=—Cut half a pound of bacon fat into slices, then into very small pieces, and fry them until the oil extracted is a light brown; remove the pan from the fire and add the juice of a lemon, one wineglassful of strong vinegar, a salt-spoonful of pepper, and pour it over the salad with the pieces of bacon. A very nice dressing when you cannot get oil, etc.

=Summer Mayonnaise.=—Chop up the yolk and white of a hard-boiled egg very fine, and sprinkle it over a salad. Mix a plain French dressing in a cold soup-plate, and pour over the egg and salad, and mix all together.

=Sauce Vinaigrette.=—Mix a plain French dressing, and add to it a quarter of an onion chopped fine, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley or pickle.

Don’t like the onion? Then add a few Godillot capers.

=Mayonnaise Sauce.=—Work the yolks of two raw eggs to a smooth paste, and add two salt-spoonfuls of Royal Table Salt, half a salt-spoonful of cayenne, a salt-spoonful of dry mustard, and a teaspoonful of oil; mix these ingredients thoroughly and add the strained juice of half a lemon. Take the remainder of half a pint of Virgin olive-oil and add it gradually, a teaspoonful at a time, and every fifth teaspoonful add a few drops of lemon-juice until you have used two lemons and the half-pint of oil.

There are almost as many ways of making a Mayonnaise sauce as there are of cooking eggs.

=Mayonnaise Sauce, No. 2.=—Rub the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs with the yolk of one raw egg to a smooth paste; add a heaping teaspoonful of salt, two salt-spoonfuls of white pepper, and two salt-spoonfuls of made mustard; mix thoroughly and work a gill of oil gradually into the mixture, alternated with a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar until you have used three tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Should the sauce appear too thick add a wineglassful of cream gradually.

=Lobster Salad.=—Tear the meat of the lobster into shreds with two forks; remove the eggs (_if a hen lobster_) from the fins; scrape out all the green fat from the shell and set it aside. Prepare for making a Mayonnaise by working a tablespoonful of the fat into a smooth paste; let this green fat, with the yolk of one raw egg and one hard-boiled egg, be the basis of your Mayonnaise; in all other particulars follow instruction for Mayonnaise sauce. When complete mix the lobster meat with three tablespoonfuls of the sauce. Cover the bottom of a dish or compot with lettuce (the large leaves tear in two), put a layer of lobster upon it; next add a layer of celery cut into narrow-inch strips, and another layer of lobster; arrange it neatly on the dish; sprinkle the eggs or the chopped coral on the lettuce round the edges; pour the sauce over the meat, garnish with lobster-legs, and serve.

Somebody sent to the Washington _Republic’s_ correspondent, “G. H. B.,” while he was laid up in Providence hospital with the gout, a very fine lobster, and this is what he did with it: “Now, I’ll tell you about that lobster. I had him laid away tenderly in the ice-chest, and directed him to appear at dinner with some leaves of lettuce and a raw egg. The yolk of that egg I mingled, with slow, deliberate revolutions of a fork, with mustard, red pepper, salt, and oil. When the paste was thick enough to take up on the end of the fork like dough I thinned it—‘cut it’ is technical—with vinegar, and there was my dressing. I planted a table facing the snow-storm, at which I mocked and jeered in a temperature of seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Then did I disrobe the ‘Cardinal of the Seas’ (you remember the Frenchman who applied that to lobsters, thinking they came from the ocean red?) of his vestments, and by the aid of a long pickle-spoon placed all that was in him on the plate. His legs I chewed up. Then I ate him, and watched the many industrious, hard-working fathers of families trudging by in the snow, who had no lobster, and couldn’t have dressed him if they had. Then I finished up on some sponge-cake and custard, ate two apples with a sprinkle of salt, lit my pipe, and in its smoke framed beautiful porcelain figures engraven with Chinese characters and Hindoo idols. That’s what I did with that lobster. He was a prime one and very much interested the Sisters.”

=Chicken Salad.=—Cut up a cold boiled chicken into neat strips or pieces, and mix with it an equal quantity of celery. Cut the celery-stalks into inch pieces, and cut each piece into long strips; mix them together with a few spoonfuls of Mayonnaise; arrange neatly upon a dish garnished with lettuce, parsley, or hard-boiled egg, pour the remainder of the sauce over the meat, and serve.

=Veal Salad.=—Boil a nice lean piece of veal with a chicken or turkey, saving the water in which they were boiled to make a soup, and serving the fowl for dinner with egg or oyster sauce. When cold cut it up into neat strips, mix it with celery or lettuce, pour Mayonnaise over it, and serve.

The custom of pickling the pieces, etc., of fowl before mixing them in a salad does not take well with Americans.

=Herring Salad.=—Soak four Holland herrings in water or milk for three hours; then cut them up into neat, square pieces and set them aside; cut up into slices nearly three quarts of boiled potatoes while they are hot, and pour over them Rhine wine enough to moisten them; cover close, and when cold add the herrings and the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs chopped fine; crush a dozen whole peppers in a napkin, add to the salad, and mix. If milt herrings are used pound the milt to a paste, moisten it with vinegar, and pour over the salad.

If roe herring are used, separate the eggs neatly and sprinkle them over the salad, and serve.

I know a number of my German friends who will say, “Ah! that is not a herring salad.” Where are the apples, the capers, beets, pickles, etc.? But the only answer I can make them is that the majority of our German brethren make an Italian or a Russian salad and call it a herring salad.

=Potato Salad.=—Cut up three quarts of boiled potatoes, _while hot_, into neat pieces, and add to them a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a tablespoonful of chopped onion, a teaspoonful of pepper, and one of salt; add a cupful of oil, and mix; then add a cupful of warm stock, a wineglassful of vinegar (from the mixed-pickle bottle), mix the ingredients together carefully, and do not break the potato any more than is absolutely necessary; set it in the ice-box, and when cold serve by placing a leaf of lettuce on a side-dish, and put two spoonfuls of the salad upon the lettuce. The onion and parsley may be omitted, and boiled root celery added, or a little stalk celery chopped fine. You cannot make a perfect potato salad with cold boiled potatoes. Most cook-books recommend them, but that soggy, peculiar taste cannot be removed or destroyed by all the condiments in the cruet-stand. A salad prepared while the potatoes are hot will look more appetizing and will keep three or four days, while cold boiled potatoes will turn a black, uninviting color, and turn sour the second day.

=Turnip Tops.=—When turnips placed in the cellar begin to sprout they are usually thrown away, but the housekeeper of experience will tell you that a bushel of turnips will furnish her family with a salad all winter, and a very good one if properly prepared.

Place the bushel of turnips in a dark, warm cellar to sprout, and when the sprouts are three or four inches long cut them off; pick the leaves from the stems, and pour hot water over them; let them remain in the hot water a moment, then plunge them into cold water; place the sprouts in the colander to drain off all the water, and send to table with a plain dressing or bacon dressing poured over them.

=Asparagus Salad.=—Boil the asparagus, and take it from the hot water and plunge it into cold water to give it firmness; drain off the water, and send to table with sauce Vinaigrette or plain French dressing.

=Hop Sprouts.=—The hop-growers pull up all but two or three sprouts from a hill of hops, and throw them away; the few that remain in the hill are supposed to do duty as pole-climbers. Gather a small basketful of the rejected sprouts; take them home; boil them in salted water a few minutes, then plunge them into cold water; drain off all the water, and serve with a plain French dressing, bacon dressing, or sauce Vinaigrette.

If you eat asparagus you will like hop sprouts.

=Cucumber Salad.=—Peel and slice the cucumbers as thin as possible; put the slices in salted water five minutes, then draw off the water; cover them with vinegar, half a teaspoonful of pepper, and salt if necessary.

=Cucumber and Tomato Salad.=—Peel and slice a five-inch cucumber into very thin slices; put them in a bowl with half a teaspoonful of salt and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar; set it aside and mix a plain English dressing.

Take one large or two small-sized tomatoes, scald them a moment, remove the skin and put them in cold water a few minutes to cool; line the salad-bowl with lettuce, drain the cucumbers from the pickle and put them in the bowl; wipe the tomatoes and cut them into slices; put them on top of the cucumber, pour the dressing over it, and serve.

OFFICE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, }
HARRISBURG, PENN., April 16, 1879. }

_Mr. Murrey, Caterer Continental Hotel, Philadelphia_:

Send by express, to-morrow, one hundred Murrey salad sandwiches.

HENRY M. HOYT, _Governor_.

=Murrey’s Salad Sandwich.=—Cut up four ounces of breast of boiled chicken and four ounces of tongue, place them in a mortar, and pound them to a paste; add two salt-spoonfuls of celery-salt, a pinch of cayenne, a teaspoonful of anchovy paste, and four tablespoonfuls of Mayonnaise; put the mixture on a cold dish, and set it aside.

Take a few neat leaves of lettuce, dip each leaf in a little tarragon vinegar, shake it, and place it on a slice of bread; spread a layer of the prepared meat over the lettuce, then another leaf of lettuce over the meat, and the other slice of bread, and your sandwich is made. Trim off the crust, cut each sandwich in two, and fold each piece neatly in confectionery (oiled) paper.

Ham and veal make a nice salad sandwich. The meat may be spread on the bread and the lettuce in the centre, if preferred.

=Muskmelon Salad.=—Should you be so unfortunate as to receive an insipid, over-ripe melon, do not send it from the table, but scoop it out on your plate with a spoon, pour a French dressing over it, and you will thank me for the suggestion.

=Alligator-Pear Salad.=—This tropical fruit, that tastes something like our chestnuts, is beginning to find favor among us, but care should be used in selecting the fruit. The green colored fruit is the best; the black, over-ripe fruit is useless. Cut the pear in two, remove the large seed, cut away the outer rind, then cut the fruit into strips and season with a salt-spoonful of salt, two tablespoonfuls best Virgin olive-oil, a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar—nothing else.

=Salt.=—Of all the condiments now in use salt is the most essential. The health of every individual depends upon it, and it is as much required as food or drink; therefore the salt question is an important one to families. Do not buy salt so fine as to cake in the salt-cellar, for it is almost useless; nor use a very coarse salt; a happy medium is the thing. What is known to the trade as Royal Table Salt is the proper fineness and best adapted for hotels and family use.

=Mushrooms.=—I have purposely avoided introducing mushrooms into my receipts on account of the expense attached, but where the expense is only a secondary consideration they may be used indiscriminately. Of the French canned mushrooms the A. Godillot’s brand gives the best satisfaction, being put up and sealed at the source of supply, and, therefore, their natural flavors are preserved. Our field mushrooms are very nice when fresh, cooked in any form. To distinguish them from the poisonous fungi, “A Constant Reader,” writing to the London _Times_, says: “I venture to send you a simple test of the mushroom, which I have practised for many years, and for which I am indebted to an old herbalist. Before peeling the mushroom pass a gold ring backwards and forwards on the skin of the mushroom; should the bruise thus caused turn yellow or orange color the mushroom is poisonous, but otherwise it is quite safe. I have tried repeated baskets of mushrooms in this way, some turning yellow and others retaining the usual color, though in all other respects to all appearance the same.”

Forney’s _Progress_ on mushrooms:

He saw a fellow gathering mushrooms, and he knew they were the poisonous kind.

“Take care,” he said, “those mushrooms are poisonous.”

“Oh! that makes no difference,” replied the man. “I am not going to eat them; I’m gathering them for market.”

=The Mystery of making Loaf Bread—A Trustworthy Receipt.=—“Loaf bread,” once said an experienced housekeeper to us, “interferes with the salvation of more housekeepers than any other one thing in the world.” This was probably an extravagant statement, yet to the country housewife who cannot turn to a convenient bakery the duty of breadmaking is too often a heavy cross—a sort of hit-or-miss experiment. Heavy, sour bread is far more general than the opposite, and this is trying to both the digestions and to the tempers of the family who eat it. Yet there is no reason for this; there is a philosophy of breadmaking as of everything else, and certain causes accomplish certain results. Therefore we are glad to be able to give a receipt from a practical housekeeper whose bread _never_ fails: To make two quarts of bread or rolls take four or five nice, large Irish potatoes, peel and cut them up, and put them to boil in just enough water to cover them. When done mash smooth in the same water, and when _cool_, not _cold_, add a half-teacupful of yeast—or, if you use compressed yeast, the sixth part of a cake dissolved in tepid water—a dessert-spoonful of sugar, a little salt, a tablespoonful of lard, and a pint of flour. Mix together lightly. This should be very soft and quite sticky. Set by in a covered vessel in a warm place to rise. In two or three hours it will be risen, and should look almost like yeast, full of bubbles. Now work in the rest of your two quarts of flour, and, if necessary, add a little cold water. The dough should be rather soft and need not be kneaded more than half an hour. Set to rest in a moderately warm place for four hours or thereabouts. It can be baked now if wanted at once, but, if not, take a spoon and push the dough down from the top and sides of the vessel containing it, and let it rise again. The oftener the bread rises the lighter it will be—three times is, however, sufficient. After it rises the last time take it out of the vessel and knead it with your hands until it is smooth. If too soft add a little more flour. For rolls, roll out and cut as if for biscuit. If you prefer doubled rolls give each a touch with the rolling-pin to make it oblong, and then double it over. The baking-pan must be greased and the rolls must not touch each other. Set down to rise; this will take half or three-quarters of an hour. Then put in the oven and bake as you would biscuit. Unless the oven is _hot_ the rolls will spread and the crust be hard.—_Col. McClure’s Philadelphia Times._

=Wheat Bread.=—Put seven pounds of flour into a bread-pan, hollow out the centre, and add a quart of lukewarm water, a teaspoonful of salt, and a wineglassful of yeast. Have ready more warm water, and add gradually as much as will make a smooth, soft dough. Knead it well; dust a little flour over it, cover it with a cloth, and set it in a warm place for four hours; then knead it again for fifteen minutes and let it rise again. Divide it into loaves and bake in a quick oven.

=Corn Bread.=—Sift three quarts of corn meal, add a tablespoonful of salt, and mix sufficient water with it to make a very thin batter. Cover it with a bread-cloth and set it to rise. When ready to bake stir it well, pour it into a baking-pan, and bake slowly. Use cold water in summer and hot water in winter.

=Continental Hotel Corn Bread.=—Sift together a pound and a half wheat flour, one pound Indian meal, two ounces Royal Baking Powder, and a tablespoonful salt. Beat together three ounces of sugar, three ounces of butter, and four eggs; add the mixture to the flour, and make a stiff batter by adding warm milk if in winter, cold milk in summer. Bake in small square moulds.

=Continental Hotel Muffins.=—Mix two and a half pounds flour, three ounces Royal Baking Powder, and tablespoonful salt. Beat up three ounces of sugar, three ounces butter, and four eggs together; add to the flour, make a batter with milk, half fill the muffin-rings, and bake in a quick oven.

=Boston Brown Bread.=—Sift together thoroughly half a pint of flour, one pint corn meal, half a pint rye flour, one teaspoonful salt, one tablespoonful brown sugar, and two teaspoonfuls baking powder. Peel, wash, and boil two mealy potatoes; rub them through the sieve, diluting with half a pint of water. When this is quite cold use it to make a batter and pour it into a well-greased mould having a cover. Place it in a saucepan of boiling water. Simmer one hour without the water getting into it; take it out of the water, remove the cover, and finish cooking by baking about thirty minutes.

=Steamed Brown Bread.=—One quart each of milk and Indian meal, one pint of rye meal, one cup of molasses, two teaspoonfuls of soda. Add a little salt and steam four hours.

M. G. H.

=Milk Biscuit.=—Take one-fourth of a pound butter, one quart lukewarm milk, two wineglassfuls yeast, salt to taste, and as much flour as will form the dough. Stir flour into the milk to make a thick batter, and add the yeast. This should be done in the evening. Next morning melt the butter and pour it into the sponge; add flour enough to make a stiff dough; knead it well and set it aside to rise. When perfectly light roll it out an inch thick and cut the biscuits, set them in shallow baking-pans, and set them in a moderately warm place to rise. When they are light brush beaten egg over them and bake in a quick oven.

=Corn Cakes.=—Scrape twelve ears of corn, use two eggs, one and one-half cups of milk, salt and pepper to taste, and flour enough to hold all together. Fry in hot fat.