SUMMER SALAD.
1152. INGREDIENTS.—3 lettuces, 2 handfuls of mustard-and-cress, 10 young radishes, a few slices of cucumber.
[Illustration: SALAD IN BOWL.]
Mode.—Let the herbs be as fresh as possible for a salad, and, if at all stale or dead-looking, let them lie in water for an hour or two, which will very much refresh them. Wash and carefully pick them over, remove any decayed or wormeaten leaves, and drain them thoroughly by swinging them gently in a clean cloth. With a silver knife, cut the lettuces into small pieces, and the radishes and cucumbers into thin slices; arrange all these ingredients lightly on a dish, with the mustard-and-cress, and pour under, but not over the salad, either of the sauces No. 506, 507, or 508, and do not stir it up until it is to be eaten. It may be garnished with hard-boiled eggs, cut in slices, sliced cucumbers, nasturtiums, cut vegetable-flowers, and many other things that taste will always suggest to make a pretty and elegant dish. In making a good salad, care must be taken to have the herbs freshly gathered, and thoroughly drained before the sauce is added to them, or it will be watery and thin. Young spring onions, cut small, are by many persons considered an improvement to salads; but, before these are added, the cook should always consult the taste of her employer. Slices of cold meat or poultry added to a salad make a convenient and quickly-made summer luncheon-dish; or cold fish, flaked, will also be found exceedingly nice, mixed with it.
Average cost, 9d. for a salad for 5 or 6 persons; but more expensive when the herbs are forced.
Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.
Seasonable from May to September.
CUCUMBERS.—The cucumber is refreshing, but neither nutritious nor digestible, and should be excluded from the regimen of the delicate. There are various modes of preparing cucumbers. When gathered young, they are called gherkins: these, pickled, are much used in seasonings.
[Illustration: CUCUMBER-SLICE.]
RADISHES.—This is the common name given to the root of the Raphanus satious, one of the varieties of the cultivated horseradish. There are red and white radishes; and the French have also what they call violet and black ones, of which the black are the larger. Radishes are composed of nearly the same constituents as turnips, that is to say, mostly fibre and nitrogen; and, being generally eaten raw, it is on the last of these that their flavour depends. They do not agree with people, except those who are in good health, and have active digestive powers; for they are difficult of digestion, and cause flatulency and wind, and are the cause of headaches when eaten to excess. Besides being eaten raw, they are sometimes, but rarely, boiled; and they also serve as a pretty garnish for salads. In China, the radish may be found growing naturally, without cultivation; and may be occasionally met with in England as a weed, in similar places to where the wild turnip grows; it, however, thrives best in the garden, and the ground it likes best is a deep open loam, or a well-manured sandy soil.
[Illustration: TURNIP RADISHES.]
[Illustration: LONG RADISHES.]