Feminine Interests

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 771, 18 September 1929, Page 5

Feminine Interests

Serving Appetising Salads

A Few Useful Hints

THE days are coming when you should be serving salads as often as you possibly can. In the season never allow a single day to pass without serving at least one green salad, sometimes a cooked salad as well.

Take a look first at your store cuphoard. For unless you live next door to a greengrocer and a delicatessen shop it is quite impossible to serve salads as often as you want without the help of a wcll-stockcd store cupboard. Then see that you have the following supplies in that precious cupboard of yours: Tins of sardines and salmon. Bottles of prawns, salad cream, mixed herbs, tomato catsup, wine vinegar, tarragon vinegar. Chilli vinegar, salad oil. Tots of French mustard. Tins of asparagus. Shelled walnuts. Apples, oranges, grape fruit. Tins of peaches, apricots, pineapple, berries, pears. Jars of home-made pickled beetroot, horseradish cream, sandwich spread. Tins of devilled ham, glasses of tongue, fish, and meat pastes. FRENCH DRESSING Be sure, too, to stir a little French mustard with French dressing ingredients before adding vinegar. If you pay attention to these details you will find your reputation as a salad maker improve by leaps and bounds. Now try some of the following re- . ipes for sweet and savory dressings and salads, remembering that if you provide a cool, crisp green salad, cream cheese, butter and fresh rolls or toast for lunch or supper you can dispense with a sweet. Or you can make a delicious fruit salad out of tinned fruit, if you freshen it up with the juice of a lemon instead of the cheese and green salad. It is not necessary to have both a green and a fi'uit salad at the same meal.

Prawn salad is a novelty served in ; Viennese fashion—place a mound of 1 Russian salad to the centre of a plate, rinK -*vith lettuce leaves, and lean prawns all round Russian salad, so as to form a crown. Cook one cup peas, one cup diced carrot, one cup diced turnip, one cup string beans, cut in half-inches, sepa-. rate and drain well. Make a dressing of three tablespoons salad oil. one tablespoon vinegar and seasoning to taste. Put a little in four separate plates and steep the vegetables separately in dressing for one hour. Mix with any boiled salad dressing and serve in a glass bowl lined with lettuce leaves. This is good either as a salad to serve with cold meat or as part of hors d'oeuvre service. Some housewives ornament this salad with sieved yolk of egg. If you want a simple little salad tor lunch, mix equal quantities of diced tart apple and chopped walnuts with mayonnaise enough to moisten and serve on plates lined with lettuce leaves. Then both finely sliced tomato and beetroot are all the better if served in a dish with equal quantity of olive oil and vinegar poured over. Sprinkle either minced chives or onion lightly on top. The tomato is best with ham j and the beetroot with cold roast beef. Never serve a salad in the bowl in which it is mixed. After tossing it lightly with salad spoons, transfer to a fresh salad bowl. One of the most delicious hot weather salads is made by serving a slice of pineapple on a lettuce leaf, and using sour cream, seasoned with paprika and a little salt, and lightly beaten as a dressing. This also goes well with ham.

You can make all kinds of salads for cold meats with pineapple. One of the prettiest is made by placing a thick round slice of tinned pineapple on a lettuce leaf on each plate to form a base for half a banana cut crosswise and place in centre. Serve with whipped cream, sharpened with lemon juice.