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Oyster Salad (Dozen fresh oysters heads)

6 dozen fresh oysters. 6 heads of celery with part of their green tops. About half as much tender white cabbage. The mayonaise salad dressing. 1. Make the mayonaise with lemon juice instead of vinegar-or use the juice of 2 lemons, 1 tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar and a little pepper sauce or chili-vinegar.

After washing the celery and cabbage throw them into boiling salted water, let them boil not less than 5 nor more than 10 minutes, then drain and cover with cold water, then drain dry and chop them fine.

The green celery leaves acquire an intenser green in the boiling water, and chopped with the stalks and roots give a tinge to the whole. Drain the liquor from the oysters and bring it to a boil in order to remove the scum either by skimming or straining. After that add to it an equal quantity of good vinegar, a seasoning of broken pepper-corns, pepper sauce and salt, then put in the oysters and bring them just to the boiling point and no more. Shake the saucepan continually that the oysters may become set while cooking in round and plump shape. Then drain them from the liquor and set them away on a dish to become ice-cold.

When to be dished season the chopped celery, etc., with oil and vinegar, slightly, but well mixed in, spread a spoonful of it in the middle of each small dish, on that lay some oysters side by side, and on top another spoonful of the celery. Flatten the top slightly but don't smooth the sides. Pour the mayonaise over just thin enough to run.

The foregoing is not enough for the average orders of fifty persons. 2. Prepare the ingredients as above-but the allemande salad dressing or any other may be used as well.

Fry some outside leaves of lettuce, twice as many as you expect to use that you may select those which are the most like shells in shape and of the finest green-bronze color after frying. Good sweet lard should be used made hot in the potato fryer, but not smoking hot. The leaves take about a minute or two to fry green colored but dry. When done lay them hollow side down on baking sheets and let them drain perfectly in a hot place, then let them become cold. Shape little oyster (or lobster) salads in egg cups, and dish them up in these crisped lettuce leaves like a fish in a shell. Spread dressing over as usual.