Beef Salad
Cold cooked beef, lettuce, cooked dressing No. 2, four tablespoonfuls of horse radish.
Cut the cold cooked beef into thin slices and then into pieces about an inch square. Arrange them neatly on lettuce leaves. Stir into the cooked dressing No. 2, four tablespoonfuls of horse radish, and pour it over the beef and serve at once.
A leftovers dish, and the whole thing turns on the dressing rather than the beef. Cut the meat while it is thoroughly cold and dress it only at the table.
- "Cooked dressing No. 2"A cross-reference to a boiled dressing given earlier in the book; the page here does not repeat its ingredients. Dressings of that type were generally built on egg, a flour or cornstarch thickening, vinegar, mustard and milk or cream, cooked over hot water, and are sharper than mayonnaise. A modern stand-in is bottled salad cream, or mayonnaise let down with a spoonful of cider vinegar and a little mustard.
- Four tablespoons of horseradishProbably freshly grated root, which is hot but not acidic, though bottled prepared horseradish was also available. Jarred prepared horseradish is packed in vinegar; drain it well and start with two tablespoons, or the dressing turns thin and sour.
- Which beefCold roast, braised or boiled beef, well trimmed of fat and gristle. Slice thinly across the grain first, then square the slices; carving warm beef this thin tears it, so chill it fully.
- QuantityNo amounts are given for the beef. About a pound of trimmed cold beef with a head of lettuce and a cup of dressing serves four as a light main course.
- Dress at the last minute"Serve at once" is the operative instruction. The dressing will soften the lettuce if the salad stands.
- Handling the leftover meatCooked beef intended for a cold salad should go into the refrigerator within two hours of cooking and be used within three or four days. The dish is served cold with no further cooking, so the meat gets no second chance.
- SeasoningBoiled roasts and cold braises taste flat straight from the refrigerator. Salt the cut beef lightly and give it a grind of pepper before the dressing goes on.
Salads of this kind belong to the economy of the cold larder, when a Sunday joint was expected to reappear on Monday and Tuesday in some presentable form. Boiled or cooked dressings, thickened with egg and flour over water, were the American household standard well before commercial mayonnaise reached grocery shelves, and they suited the sharper flavors of the period. Beef and horseradish is an older pairing still, carried over from the roast beef table, and the grated root does the same work here that mustard does elsewhere -- it cuts the flatness of meat eaten cold. Books like this one, numbering their dressings for reuse, reflect a moment when the salad was being promoted from a side dish to something a hostess could serve as a luncheon in its own right.