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Spring Salad
Take young and freshly-cut spring vegetables, such as lettuces, young radishes, mustard and cress, and a few spring onions, if liked. Look them carefully over to see that they are clean and free from insects, and wipe them with a cloth, or if necessary plunge them into cold water for a moment, but on no account let them remain in it longer than is necessary to cleanse them. If they have been washed, dry them perfectly. The best way of doing this is to let them drain for a little time, then put a small quantity at a time into a dry napkin; shake this by the four corners till all the moisture is expelled. The goodness of a salad depends to a great extent upon the vegetables being perfectly dry. Tear them into small pieces with the hands; arrange them in the salad-bowl, so that the light and dark greens shall contrast prettily. Put the radishes and onions round, and garnish the dish with parsley or nasturtium leaves, beetroot, hard-boiled egg, etc. Send any good salad-sauce (see SALAD, MAYONNAISE SAUCE FOR) to table in a boat, and stir it briskly into the salad at the moment of serving. If it should be preferred, the salad-sauce may be dispensed with, and the salad prepared as follows. For a moderate-sized salad-bowl or salad, mix in the salad-spoon a spoonful of mustard, a spoonful of salt, and half a spoonful of pepper, and stir into these a table-spoonful of vinegar, and, if liked, a few drops of tarragon vinegar may be added. Work these lightly but thoroughly into the salad, then put in four table-spoonfuls of best Lucca oil, and stir the salad again for a few minutes. Serve immediately.
A method rather than a fixed formula: the instructions are about handling the leaves, and the dressing at the end is a plain vinaigrette built in the bowl. Two details are worth attention before you start.
- Dry leaves above allThe insistence on perfect dryness is the hinge of the whole thing. Water clinging to the leaves dilutes the dressing and stops the oil adhering, so the salad tastes watery no matter how good the vinegar. A salad spinner does what the napkin did, faster.
- Mustard and cressThis is the British seed-tray mixture of white mustard and garden cress, sold as a punnet of pale seedlings and clipped with scissors. Microgreens or a few sprigs of peppery cress are the closest current equivalent; watercress is stronger but works.
- Lucca oilOlive oil from Lucca in Tuscany, which in the nineteenth century was the standard by which table oil was judged in Britain. Any good, mild extra-virgin oil is what is meant " the point was sweetness and freshness, not assertive bitterness.
- A spoonful of mustardAmbiguous in the original. Cassell's is almost certainly describing dry English mustard powder rather than a made paste, and a full spoonful of powder against one spoonful of vinegar would be ferociously hot. Start with a scant teaspoon and taste.
- The salad-spoon as a measure"A spoonful" here means the wooden salad spoon, not a modern measuring spoon, and there is no standard size. Treat the proportions as a ratio instead: roughly four parts oil to one of vinegar, which is a shade richer than the usual three-to-one.
- Order of assemblyThe recipe works the seasoning and vinegar into the leaves first and adds oil afterwards, the reverse of common modern practice. Coating the leaves in oil first protects them from the acid and salt; if you follow the original order, dress at the very last moment as instructed.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and easy to make by steeping fresh tarragon in white wine vinegar for a couple of weeks. A few drops is the right scale "" it is a seasoning here, not the acid.
- YieldThe original does not define a "moderate-sized salad-bowl." The dressing given -- about a tablespoon of vinegar to four of oil -- would suit a bowl of the sort that might serve four to six as a side dish.
A green salad in a late-Victorian English kitchen was understood as a matter of handling, not composition: the cook was expected to know that limp, wet or long-soaked leaves were the usual failure. The instruction to send the sauce to table separately in a boat and stir it in at the last moment reflects both the fear of a collapsed salad and the service conventions of the period, where dressing at table was a small piece of theatre. Spring salad itself is seasonal shorthand: lettuce, radish, spring onion and seedling cress were the first things out of an English kitchen garden after winter, and their appearance on the table marked the turn of the year as clearly as any date.