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Pepper, Salt, Oil, and Chilli Vinegar
A slice of toasted Bread.
Wash, drain, and tear into small pieces two French lettuces. Toast a slice of bread about onethird of an inch thick, dip it in salad oil and put it in a salad bowl. Put alternate layers of lettuce and French beans on this toast. Garnish with cooked beetroot, hard-boiled eggs and chopped chervil; season with pepper, salt, oil, and Chilli vinegar just before it is required for table; do not let it stand after the dressing is poured over it.
A composed green salad built on an oiled crouton, in the French manner. The recipe assumes you know what to do with the four seasonings named in the title, so the proportions are left to you.
- The hinge: dress at the last momentThe instruction not to let it stand is the whole point. Torn lettuce collapses within minutes of meeting salt and acid, and the beetroot bleeds pink through everything. Assemble the bowl ahead, season and toss as it goes to the table.
- The toastA third of an inch is about 8 mm — one slice from a firm white loaf, toasted dry so it does not turn to paste, then soaked in oil. An oiled bread base of this kind resembles the French chapon, though that is normally a crust rubbed with garlic; whether it is eaten with the salad or left in the bowl varies.
- French lettucesProbably the soft-headed butterhead or Batavian types rather than cos, though the book does not say. Little Gem or a pair of butterheads are the closest thing now.
- French beansGreen beans, boiled until just tender and refreshed in cold water so they hold their colour, then drained completely dry. Wet beans dilute the dressing. Something in the region of 8 oz (225 g) would suit two lettuces, though the recipe specifies no quantity.
- Chilli vinegarA standard Victorian store cupboard item: dried chillies steeped in vinegar, with steeping times varying from a few days to several weeks depending on the recipe. Strength varied with the quantity of chillies used. Sherry or cider vinegar with a pinch of chilli flakes stands in reasonably well.
- Proportions for the seasoningThe recipe gives none. The usual convention is roughly three parts oil to one of vinegar, with salt dissolved and pepper added last. "Salad oil" here would normally mean a bland olive or nut oil, not the peppery extra virgin sold today.
- GarnishCook and skin the beetroot, then cut it and add it on top rather than tossing it in. A couple of hard-boiled eggs, quartered, and a small handful of chopped chervil finish it; chervil loses its flavour quickly once chopped.
The oiled slice of bread at the bottom of the bowl is a French device, the chapon, more often rubbed with a cut clove of garlic before being oiled. Chilli vinegar, made by steeping dried capsicums in vinegar, was a common household bottling by the 1880s and gave a warmth that plain wine vinegar could not; it turns up repeatedly in Victorian salads, cold sauces and oyster dressings.