How to serve Salad

Washing Ingredients - Wash salad greens and examine to insure the removal of all aphids. Then soak in cold water for half an hour to crisp, and dry on a towel or by shaking in a wire basket.

Chilling Ingredients - All ingredients, fruits, vegetables, and dressing, should be chilled (see directions on next page for keeping materials) before being folded together. The bowl used should be chilled; also the plates upon which the salad is served.

Frozen Salads - This name may seem misleading because pieces of fruit or vegetable in salads should never be actually frozen. Combined with whipped cream and mayonnaise, the mixture is frozen like mousse, but it should not be frozen long enough to harden the fruit or vegetable. Salads made of vegetable or fruit pulp may be frozen. The freezing can be done by packing in ice and salt or by placing the mixture in the drawers of a mechanically cooled refrigerator.

Keeping Materials - Lettuce, most vegetables and many fruits may be kept for days by wrapping in a damp cloth or paper bag and placing on ice. In a mechanically cooled refrigerator, lettuce and other salad greens keep best if they are washed and placed in closely covered enamel or porcelain containers with a very little water.

Cutting Materials - Salad materials should be cut in uniform, well-defined pieces small enough so that they will not lose their shape in the folding process. If part of the celery to be used is tough, cut it in fine pieces and cut the tender parts in larger pieces. In this way the toughness will not be detected.

"When both the dark and light meat of chicken are used, dice the dark in small cubes and the light in larger cubes. This gives a more pleasing appearance to the salad. If veal or pork is used to extend the chicken, dice it finer than the chicken and its presence will not be detected.

Marinating Salads - A marinade is used to give flavor to salad materials and is made by mixing oil, salt, and lemon-juice or vinegar (sometimes onion-juice). The vegetables, fish or meat may stand an hour or so in the marinade before using. When several vegetables are to be used, each one should be marinated separately. For serving, these vegetables may be combined, or placed on lettuce leaves in small individual mounds, as preferred.

Addition of Salad Dressing - The dressing should never be folded into the salad until time for serving, except in the case of a salad like potato salad, when it is preferable for the dressing to soak in.

Arrangement of Salad - The lettuce leaf should have the stem end cut off so that this ragged part does not hang over the edge of the plate. Care should be taken that the garnish is carefully placed.

Place the salad on the lettuce leaf carefully so that it will not fall apart and spread ungracefully over the plate. No part of the salad should extend beyond the edge of the plate.