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Mixed Green Salad
6 LETTUCE LEAVES 6 ROMAINE LEAVES I CUP THINLY SLICED CHINESE CABBAGE 6 ESCAROLE LEAVES I TABLESPOON MINCED ONION FRENCH DRESSING Rub bowl with garlic; arrange the greens in layers and sprinkle with minced onion; add dressing and toss. Drop a four-leaf clover on top for luck.
Substitute any tasty wild leaves for garden lettuces that are lacking.
TARRAGON I SMALL HEAD LETTUCE, TORN WITH FINGERS I GREEN PIMIENTO, CHOPPED I RED PIMIENTO, CHOPPED FINE
A camp-table salad built on whatever leaves are at hand, dressed at the last moment. The proportions are loose by design; the technique is the whole recipe.
- Dry leaves firstThe hinge is water. Dressing will not cling to wet greens and the oil slides to the bottom of the bowl. Shake or spin the leaves dry before they go in, and dress only when you are ready to serve.
- Rubbing the bowlHalve a garlic clove and drag the cut face over the inside of the bowl until it grips. That is all the garlic the salad gets, and for a salad of this size it is enough.
- French dressingIn American books of this period this means a simple vinaigrette shaken together, roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar with salt and pepper, not the sweet orange bottled dressing sold under that name today. Figure about 3 tablespoons total for this quantity of leaves.
- Chinese cabbageEither napa or the looser-leaved varieties work. Slice it crosswise into fine ribbons; the thick white ribs are the part that needs to be thin.
- Escarole and romaineBoth are sturdier than the head lettuce, and the escarole brings a bitterness the plain lettuce lacks, which is the point of the mixture. Tear rather than cut, and use the pale inner escarole leaves in preference to the tough dark outer ones.
- Minced onionA tablespoon of raw onion for four is assertive. A milder sweet onion, or a shallot, keeps it from taking over the bowl.
- Wild leavesThe invitation to substitute wild greens assumes a cook who knows the local plants on sight. Dandelion, lamb's quarters, watercress, purslane and young sorrel all belong in a salad; nothing unidentified does.
- YieldRoughly four side salads, though the recipe gives no yield. It does not hold once dressed, so mix in the bowl it will be served from.