Boil two large chickens in enough water to cover them, add salt while boiling; when very tender remove from the fire and allow the chickens to cool in the liquor in which they were boiled, when cold skim off every particle of fat, and reserve it to use instead of oil. If possible boil the chickens the day previous to using. Now cut the chickens up into small bits (do not chop), cut white, crisp celery in half inch pieces, and sprinkle with fine salt, allowing half as much celery as you have chicken, mixing the chicken and celery, using two silver forks to do this. Rub the yolks of six hard-boiled eggs as fine as possible, add one-half teaspoon of salt, white pepper, four tablespoons of chicken-fat that has been skimmed off the broth, adding one at a time, stirring constantly, one tablespoon of best prepared mustard, two teaspoons each mustard seed and celery seed, and two tablespoons of white sugar; add gradually, stirring constantly, one cup of white wine vinegar. Pour this dressing over the chicken and celery and toss lightly with the silver forks. Line a large salad bowl with lettuce leaves, pour in the salad and garnish the top with the chopped whites of six hard-boiled eggs; pour a pint of mayonnaise over the salad just before serving. A neat way is to serve the salad in individual salad dishes, lining each dish with a lettuce leaf, garnish the salad with an olive stuck up in the center of each portion. The bones of the chicken may be used for soup, letting them simmer in water to cover for three hours.
Take one large chicken, cook with four quarts of water for two or three hours. Skim carefully, when it begins to boil add parsley root, an onion, some asparagus, cut into bits. Season with salt, strain and beat up the yolk of an egg with one tablespoon of cold water, add to soup just before serving. This soup should not be too thin. Rice, barley, noodles or dumplings may be added. Make use of the chicken, either for salad or stew.
Mix one saltspoon of pepper with one of salt; add three tablespoonfuls of olive oil and one even tablespoonful of onion scraped fine; then one tablespoonful of vinegar; when well mixed, pour the mixture over your salad and stir all till well mingled. The merit of a salad is that it should be cool, fresh and crisp. For vegetables use only the delicate white stalks of celery, the small heart-leaves of lettuce; or tenderest stalks and leaves of the white cabbage. Keep the vegetable portion crisp and fresh until the time for serving, when add the meat. For chicken and fish salads use the "Mayonnaise dressing." For simple vegetable salads the French dressing is most appropriate, using onion rather than garlic.
Have cold roasted or boiled chicken free of skin, fat and bones. Place on a board, and cut in long, thin strips, and cut these into dice. Place in an earthen bowl (there should be two quarts), and season with four table-spoonfuls of vinegar, two of oil, one teaspoonful of salt and one-half of a teaspoonful of pepper. Set away in a cold place for two or three hours. Scrape and wash enough of the tender white celery to make one quart. Cut this, with a sharp knife, in pieces about half an inch thick. Put these in the ice chest until serving time. Make the mayonnaise dressing. Mix the chicken and celery together, and add half of the dressing. Arrange in a salad bowl or on a flat dish, and pour the remainder of the dressing over it. Garnish with white celery leaves. Or, have a jelly border, and arrange the salad in this. Half celery and half lettuce is often used for chicken salad. Many people, when preparing for a large company, use turkey instead of chicken, there being so much more meat in the same number of pounds of the raw material; but the salad is not nearly so nice as with chicken. If, when the chicken or fowl is cooked, it is allowed to cool in the water in which it is boiled, it will be juicier and tenderer than if taken from the water as soon as done.
Boil ten potatoes (small, round ones preferred) in their skins. When done, peel them while, still hot and slice in thin, round slices. Spread over the potatoes one onion, sliced fine, and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper, add one tablespoon of mustard seed, one-half tablespoon of celery seed, and one-half tablespoon of sugar. Beat one egg until light, pour two tablespoons of goose or chicken fat, melted, over the eggs, stir well, add one-half cup of vinegar, pour over the seasoned potatoes: then add one-quarter cup of hot water and if necessary, add a little more vinegar, salt or pepper. One or two chopped hard-boiled eggs added improves the salad. Line a salad bowl with lettuce leaves, pour in the salad and decorate the top with grated hard-boiled eggs. Melted butter may be used if for a milk meal or heated olive oil for a parve salad in place of the melted fat.
Cut cold veal in half-inch slices, season with two tablespoons of vinegar, pinch of salt and pepper. Make a dressing using the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, mashed smooth, add gradually two tablespoons of melted cold chicken or turkey grease, stir until smooth and thick, then add one teaspoon of prepared mustard, large pinch of salt and pepper, one teaspoon of sugar, one teaspoon each of mustard and celery seed, and five tablespoons of white vinegar. Mix the dressing well with the veal, and serve with or without lettuce leaves.
Cut up and season the lobster the same as chicken. Break the leaves from a head of lettuce, one by one, and wash them singly in a large pan of cold water. Put them in a pan of ice water for about ten minutes, and then shake in a wire basket, to free them of water. Place in the ice chest until serving time. When ready to serve, put two or three leaves together in the form of a shell, and arrange these shells on a flat dish. Mix one-half of the mayonnaise dressing with the lobster. Put a table-spoonful of this in each cluster of leaves. Finish with a teaspoonful of the dressing on each spoonful of lobster. This is an exceedingly inviting dish. Another method is to cut or tear the leaves rather coarse, and mix with the lobster. Garnish the border of the dish with whole leaves. There should be two-thirds lobster to one-third lettuce.
The yolks of four uncooked eggs, one table-spoonful of salt, one heaping teaspoonful of sugar, one heaping teaspoonful of mustard, half a cupful of clarified chicken fat, a quarter of a cupful of vinegar, the juice of half a lemon, a speck of cayenne. Make as directed for mayonnaise dressing.
The fowls for this purpose should be young and fine. You may either boil or roast them. They must be quite cold. Having removed all the skin and fat, and disjointed the fowls cut the meat from the bones into very small pieces, not exceeding an inch. Wash and split two large fine heads of celery, and cut the white part into pieces also about an inch long; and having mixed the chicken and celery together, put them into a deep china dish, cover it and set it away. It is best not to prepare the dressing till just before the salad is to be eaten, that it may be as fresh as possible. Have ready the yolks of eight hard-boiled eggs. Put them into a flat dish, and mash them to a paste with the back of a wooden spoon. Add to the egg a small tea-spoonful of fine salt, the same quantity of cayenne pepper, half a jill of made mustard, a jill or a wine-glass and a half of vinegar, and rather more than two wine-glasses of sweet oil. Mix all these ingredients thoroughly; stirring them a long time till they are quite smooth. The dressing should not be put on till a few minutes before the salad is sent in; as by lying in it the chicken and celery will become tough and hard. After you pour it on, mix the whole well together with a silver fork. Chicken salad should be accompanied with plates of bread and butter, and a plate of crackers. It is a supper dish, and is brought in with terrapin, oysters, &c. Cold turkey is excellent prepared as above. An inferior salad may be made with cold fillet of veal, instead of chickens. Cold boiled lobster is very fine cut up and drest in this manner, only substituting for celery, lettuce cut up and mixed with the lobster.
Take a fresh white fish or trout, boil and chop it, but not too fine; put with the same quantity of chopped cabbage, celery or lettuce; season the same as chicken salad. Garnish with the tender leaves of the heart of lettuce.
