Salad, Winter
INGREDIENTS for salad for 6 persons. - Endive, mustard-andcress, boiled beetroot, 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs, celery. AVERAGE COST, 8d.
The above ingredients form the principal constituents of a winter salad, and may be converted into a very pretty dish, by nicely contrasting the various colours and by tastefully garnishing it. Shred the celery into thin pieces, after having carefully washed and cut away all worm-eaten pieces; cleanse the endive and mustard-and-cress free from grit, and arrange these high in the centre of a salad-bowl or dish; garnish with the hard-boiled eggs and beetroot, both of which should be cut in slices; and pour into the dish, but not over the salad, either of the salad dressings. Never dress a salad long before it is required for table, as, by standing, it loses its freshness and pretty crisp and light appearance; the Rub the bottom of a stewpan over with butter, and put in the shalots, herbs, bayleaves, carrots, mace and seasoning; stir them for 10 minutes over a clear fire, and add the Madeira or sherry; simmer gently for 1/2 hour, and strain through a sieve over the fish, which stew in this gravy while on, as the fish is sufficiently cooked; take away all the liquor, except enough to keep the salmon moist, and put into another stewpan; add the stock, thicken with butter and flour, and put in the anchovies, lemonjuice, cayenne and salt; lay the salmon on a hot dish, pour over it part of the sauce, and serve the remainder in a tureen.
TIME.-1¼ hour.
SEASONABLE in spring and summer.
A composed winter salad rather than a tossed one: the leaves go up in the middle, the cooked garnishes around the edge, and the dressing arrives separately. Note that the text as printed here is corrupt.
- The text breaks mid-sentenceAfter "it loses its freshness and pretty crisp and light appearance; the" the page jumps into an entirely unrelated recipe for stewed salmon with Madeira, shalots and anchovy. Everything from "Rub the bottom of a stewpan" onward belongs to another entry and has nothing to do with the salad. Ignore it; the salad is finished once the dressing is poured into the dish.
- Average cost, 8dEightpence in pre-decimal British currency, for six people. It is a note on relative cheapness in the original market context, not a figure that converts usefully.
- Mustard-and-cressSeedlings of white mustard and garden cress, grown together on damp flannel or soil and cut young. Sold in punnets in Britain; elsewhere substitute a mix of peppery microgreens or young cress, not full-grown watercress, which is coarser.
- EndiveIn British usage this means curly endive or frisée, the frilly chicory, not Belgian endive. Either works, but frisée gives the volume the arrangement wants.
- BeetrootBoiled and cooled whole, then peeled and sliced. Vacuum-packed cooked beets are a reasonable stand-in; avoid pickled beets in vinegar, which will fight the dressing.
- Keep the beetroot separate until the last momentThe reason the eggs and beet are arranged as a garnish rather than mixed in is colour. Beet juice bleeds pink over egg white and leaves within minutes, which is exactly the loss of "pretty" appearance the recipe warns against.
- Dressing on the side"Pour into the dish, but not over the salad" means the dressing pools at the base of the bowl and each diner turns their own portion into it. The recipe's "either of the salad dressings" points to two options given elsewhere in the book: one worked up from egg yolk with cream, mustard and vinegar, and a plainer oil-and-vinegar mixture. Any good vinaigrette or a mustardy cream dressing suits.
- Worm-eaten celeryA real concern with field celery of the period. Modern celery needs only trimming and a check for tough strings; shred it thin on the diagonal so it stays crisp.
- Yield and timingSix as a side salad. Prepare the components ahead, but assemble shortly before serving, as the recipe directs.
Winter salads were a genuine problem in the nineteenth-century British kitchen: lettuce was a summer crop, and until glasshouse and imported produce became common the cold months offered chicories, forced seedlings, root vegetables and stored celery. Hence a "salad" built from endive, mustard-and-cress raised indoors on a windowsill or in a hotbed, boiled beetroot and hard-boiled eggs ternished arrangement, with the dressing kept below the leaves, reflects the mid-Victorian service style in which a salad was as much a decorative dish for the table as something to eat, and Mrs Beeton's emphasis on contrasting colours is of a piece with the coloured plates of arranged dishes in her book. The intrusion of a salmon recipe partway through this entry is a textual corruption of uncertain origin.