Salads. Salads are a very simple and harm less luxury, and they make an agreeable addition to our ordinary food, and if taken with plenty of oil, are very wholesome. In this country we are perfect savages in the making of salads. The dressing is often served up in a twisted bottle, and the wet vegetables are heaped up on a dish like food for cows, with the polite invita tion to every one to help himself. A salad prop erly prepared should be one of the most attract ive dishes on the table. There are many little things necessary to secure a good salad, and their variety is only limited by the ingenuity of the cook. The Spanish proverb is that four persons are necessary to make a good salad—"A spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a barris ter for salt, and a madman to stir it up." Young ladies in the country, where they have an abun dance and vaiiety of vegetables, might render a. national service if they would turn their atten tion to salads as well as croquet. If you wish to preserve the crispness and flavor of green vege tables for salads they should be gathered either early in the morning or late in the evening, and put in a cool, damp place. To soak green vege tables in water to keep them fresh, or to keep up the appearance of freshness, is a mistake. Let tuce, which is the chief thing in most green sal ads, should be eaten young, or the leaves are too. strong for a delicate salad, and if possible, let tuce should never be washed or cut with a steel knife: the best way is to break the lettuce into the bowl, or to cut it with a silver knife. If" you must wash the vegetables, do it quickly, and thoroughly dry them in a clean cloth before putting into the salad bowl. A salad should never be prepared till a few minutes before it is wanted. A variety of vegetables may be used according to taste, but the fewer the better cress is often too thready to be used agreeably; the chief vegetables are lettuce, endive, radishes, onions, basil, mustard, watercress, cucumber. celery, mint, parsley, beetroot, dandelion, tarra zon, chervil, sorrel and tomatoes. In Europe cold meat, fish, fowl and - game are more often served as salads than green, uncooked vegetables. Our forefathers had the same notion of salads, which were frequently prepared by them from ,previously cooked meat and vegetables. Above all thing,s be particular with the sauces and jellies, meat or fish, aerved as part of the salad.
Vegetable Salad. Boil separately equal weights, according to the quantity required, of the fol lowing vegetables:—French beans, carrots, green peas, turnips and asparagus points; dry these -vegetables in a clean cloth, and when quite cold cut them into dice of one-quarter or three .eighths of an inch; the French beans should be cut into squares; now arrange them on a dish; begin by placing the French beans at the bottom and in the center, arrange round the French beans in about equal quantities in narrow rows the carrots then peas, then turnips, then aspara gus points, and if the dish is large enough and the vegetables sufficient, proceed again in the same order; sprinkle the surface with a table spoonful of Ravigote—i. e., finely minced cher vil, tarragon, burnet. chives and garden cress, .all previously blanched, strained, cooled and •dried in a clean cloth. Serve with mayonnaise sauce in 'a boat. The success of this salad
depends on the vegetables being young and tender.
Pah Salad. Take the remains of any cold .boiled fish and cut them into email scallops about two inches, and dip them into mayonnaise sauce; wash, if necessary, two freshly gathered young Goss lettuce, a little endive and water -cress, and drain over a colander and dry in a -clean cloth, by shaking to remove all the water; .break up the lettuce, watercress, and endive into pieces about three-quartera of an inch in length, mince a small sprig of chervil, two leaves of tar ragon, and a few leaves of sorrel, peel and slice one cucumber and one beetroot, mix all together thoroughly, and begin by rubbing the dish with garlic; now arrange at the foundation a layer of the green vegetables, then a layer of cold fish, meat, chicken, lobster, shrimp, fowl or game; now a thin layer of mayonnaise sauce, then a layer of vegetable, and so on, finishing with may onnaise sauce, and garnishing with nasturtium . . _flowers; some of the beetroot and cucumber may be reserved to arrange alternately round the edge of the dish, or aspic jelly and hard boiled eggs, or olives may also be introduced: this makes a very pretty foundation. With all fish salads mayonnaise sauce ahould be served in .a boat. The mayonnaise sauce must be good and the vegetables fresh, and taste should be shown in the arrangement of the materials.
Lettuce Salad. If necessary wash two let tuces, dry them thoroughly in a cloth, and break the leaves or cut them with a silver knife into convenient pieces; put the yolks of two hard boiled eggs into a basin, (not boiled more than eight or nine minutes or the yolks will be dark .colored), with a teaspoonful of dry mustard, _pepper and salt to taste, and one tablespoonful .of oil; work the mixture into a smooth paste .and add gradually three tablespoonfuls of oil and two of vinegar; when mixed to the consist .ency of cream add two or three leaves of tar ragon, and one small eschalot finely minced, and the whites of two eggs cut into half-inch dice, .then add the lettuce and a small handful of garden cress, and when the aauce is thoroughly mixed with the vegetables the aalad is ready. See that you have young tender lettuce, and be careful to mix the sauce thoroughly before adding the vegetables.
Tomato Salad. Take six tornatoes, but not too ripe to handle, cut them into slices and remove all the seeds, rub a dish with garlic and lay them in a mixture of oil and vinegar in the proportion of two of oil to one of vinegar; sprinkle pepper and salt over them according to taste, and a few leaves of fresh basil finely minced. Let thern lie in the sauce for two hours, and the salad is ready. Be careful in the selection of the toma toes and vvell free them from seed.
Potato Salad. Cold boiled potatoes make a very good salad. Take one pound, cut them into slices the thickness of a penny, arrange them neatly on a dish which has been rubbed with eschalot or garlic. Mince equal quantities of capers and parsley, two or three leaves of tar ragon and thyme, altogether about a tablespoon ful, add oil and vinegar in the proportion of two of oil to one of vinegar, and pepper and salt to taste; work all well together, and pour over the potatoes. For this salad the potatoes should be dry and well boiled.