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Beef Salad
Cut cold cooked beef into thin slices, and then into pieces about an inch square. Arrange them neatly on lettuce leaves. Serve with it cooked dressing, into which you have stirred 4 tablespoonfuls of horseradish, and pour it over the beef and serve at once.
A leftovers dish built on cold roast beef, dressed with a cooked (boiled) dressing sharpened with horseradish. The only real decisions are the cut of beef and the dressing itself, which the original assumes you already know how to make.
- Cooked dressing"Cooked dressing" means boiled salad dressing: eggs, vinegar, milk or water, a little flour or mustard, thickened over heat rather than emulsified cold like mayonnaise. Any boiled dressing recipe will do; it is tangier than mayonnaise and pourable, as the instruction to pour it over the beef implies.
- Horseradish quantityFour tablespoons is a lot of horseradish, and the recipe never says how much dressing it is going into. Freshly grated root is far hotter than the bottled prepared kind; start with half and taste.
- Choice of beefSlice against the grain from cold roast or braised beef. Rare roast beef and cold braised brisket both work; dry well-done round will taste like it needs the dressing to survive, which it does.
- Cut and thicknessThin slices cut into inch squares give more surface for dressing than dice would. The recipe specifies only "thin," so cut as thin as you can manage.
- Dress at the last momentThe instruction to "serve at once" is the hinge. Grated horseradish loses its heat as it stands, and dressing sitting on cold meat and lettuce will slacken. Combine as it goes to the table.
- Food safety with cold beefCooked beef should be refrigerated promptly and used within three or four days. Dress and serve it cold; do not leave the plated salad standing at room temperature.
- YieldNot stated. About a pound of cooked beef and a good head of lettuce serves four as a light lunch.