IMAGINATION IN SALADS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 350, 8 March 1946, Page 22

IMAGINATION IN SALADS

imagination and artistic effect in arranging salads-not forgetting their important food value -that it is no wonder their popularity increases every year. Salads are potent sources of vitamins, they have a high mineral content, they are valuable roughage, and are normal body alkalizers. To the greens can be added cheese, grated or sliced, flaked fish, chopped left-over meats of all kinds, as well as hard-boiled eggs, and left-over cooked vegetables guch as peas, beans, potatoes, and cauliflower. Tomatoes, of course, are most valuable as well as being delicious; cucumbers, celery, onions, or shallots-and even sliced fruit such as peaches, nectarines, apples, or grapes-all may be used, in discriminating combinations. A comprehensive salad, including chopped meat, fish or cheese, makes a fine main dish for a meal served with dressing or mayonnaise. Do not cut up salad greens long before the meal: keep them in a refrigerator or cold safe until you are ready to’ prepare the salad bowl or the individual salad plate. is so much scope for Nasturtiums Nasturtium leaves may be added to any salad. and give a fascinating tang. You may have nothing but a lettuce at hand, and some nasturtiums in your garden. Cut up your lettuce, add half-a-dozen nasturtium leaves, put some nasturtium seeds in the dressing, toss together and use a few of the flowers as decoration. The flowers make a good decoration for any salad, and the leaves may also be used ‘for flavouring vinegar. A pretty idea is to fill small curly lettuce leaves with grated cheese, or cream cheese, roll them up and. tie the end with long-stemmed nasturtiutn flowers. French Stuffed Nasturtiums This recipe interested me, but I do not want to try it..Perhaps some of you will. "Chop parsley, capers, and small pickles separately, mix into shredded cooked fish, and bind with mayonnaise into a thick paste. Nip the pistils and stalks from big . beautiful nasturtium flowers, and stuff with a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture, pressing each petal firmly in place to close the flower and conceal the stuffing. Place decoratively on a dish and cover with French dressing. Pop into icebox until needed for hors d’oeuvres and then garnish with tiny blue borage flowers." Scandinavian Mushrooms In Scandinavia they have a pretty tricg of clipping off the broad ends of hard-boiled eggs, then standing them up and setting skinned tomato halves on top, to resemble a certain kind of mushroom that has a scarlet cap. Dots of mayonnaise scattered over the mushrooms add to the effect. The "red-caps" are then arranged in a circle on a bed of green salad, with wedges of cucumber in between, and with the centre of the circle filled with a mound of vegetable

salad (cooked new potatoes cut into cubes and sprinkled with grated onion, cooked peas and beans, all mixed with a little French dressing). Eat with wholemeal bread and butter, and cheese. Attractive Eggs (hard-boiled) Hard-boiled eggs can be made decorative in two ways. One is to make the egg flower-like by cutting downward through the white, from the small end to the middle (without touching the yolk), with four or five strokes of the knife. Thus petals are formed which are laid open and curled slightly backward, the yolk forming the centre of the flower. Cut off the large end of the egg so that it can stand upright on a bed of green-lettuce or cress. The other little trick is to cut through the white, lengthwise, from end to end, without touching the yolk, and leaving both ends uncut. Then wrap a warm cloth round the egg, and when it is slightly heated, hold it still in the cloth, by the two ends, and squeeze gently until the strips open, exposing the yolk. A buffet supper or luncheon-table may be made very attractive by arranging these two kinds of "flowers" and also the "red-cap mushrooms," among the dishes of sliced ham, cold beef, cold chicken, soused trout or mullet, cottage cheese, cold pickled pork, and so on. Jellied beetroot gives a deeper colour-but see that it’ is not placed too near the tomato. Marguerite Salad First make some cheese balls, thus: Mash together, and work until smooth, the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, a tablespoon of butter, 60z. of grated cheese, % teaspoon of made mustard, a teaspoon of sugar, a shake of cayenne, and a dessertspoon of vinegar. Mix the mustard and vinegar first in a small basin, add the egg yolks, and butter and mash till smooth;: then work in the grated cheese and season. Form the mixture into small balls. Now take a cooked beetroot, rub off the skin and Slice it. Leave it for half an hour to marinate in a little mild vinegar, then drain. Make a potato salad by cubing cold cooked potatoes and mixing with grated onion, pepper and salt, and any favourite mayonnaise. Using either individual © salad-bowls or one big one, put in first a substantial quantity of potato salad, arrange the drained slices of beetroot smoothly ‘on top,.and then make the "Marguerites" with strips of white of egg for petals and the cheese balls for the centres. Serve with crisp wholemeai. biscuits, or scones, and more cheese balls,