The bruised seed of garden-cress, celery, and parsley, in equal portions, - say a tea-spoonful of each, a clove of garlic, and two ordinary capsicums finely minced, make, when added to half a pint of tarragon vinegar, an invaluable element of salad dressing.

In speaking of capsicums, I only allude to the skin, not to the pith or seeds.

A very few drops of the strongly flavoured vinegars I have described are, of course, ample to "animate the bowl." A cook's ingenuity will aid him in concocting other varieties easily enough. When made, cork your bottle down tightly, seal it with wax, and set it in the sun, - an operation which presents but little difficulty in this country. In a week or two, you may strain the liquid, and take it into use.

An excellent salad is that made by slicing raw ripe tomatoes, with a Bombay onion. The dressing given should be like that recommended for lettuce, only that, your allowance of oil must be abundant; and, inasmuch as tomatoes are sweet, there may be a little freer use of the vinegar cruet. As in all salads, tarragon, or any aromatic vinegar, may be employed advantageously in this one, and minced fines herbes may be sprinkled over the whole. Strips of green capsicum harmonize most pleasantly with a tomato salad. This is obviously a dish for the sterner sex, and one which no man would partake of just before a ball, on his wedding day, or at all during the halcyon period which generally precedes that ceremony. 0 ! why is our rose thus thornily encumbered ? Why was it ordained that man should never eat of the fragrant bulb without remembering it to his sorrow ? I once heard an amateur cook say that the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden must have been an onion. "Hence," said he, "the curse it carries with it, and hence the universal dislike with which it is regarded by the ladies." But this man was a free thinker.

The other form of salad dressing is closely connected with mayonnaise sauce, and has many admirers. With some vegetable ingredients it undoubtedly works better than its plainer relative. In England, however, it is almost always spoilt by being overdosed with vinegar, - common, acid stuff without any flavouring, - and in nearly every cookery book of the average capacity, you are told to mix oil and vinegar in equal parts, which I have already denounced. An old recipe called "Dr. Kitchener's salad mixture" embodies as many mistakes as could well be made in a dressing of this kind:- "two table-spoonfuls of oil, or melted butter (!) two or three table-spoonfuls of vinegar." The "poet's recipe" already alluded to is equally faulty. In point of fact, the part played by the vinegar in these dressings is really so small as regards measurement that a fixed amount can scarcely be laid down. In proportion to the oil, one-sixth is to my mind the outside allotment that should be given. This is a good every-day salad mixture:-

Put the very-hard boiled yolks of two eggs into a slop basin, with a tea-spoonful of powdered mustard, a scant salt-spoonful of salt, a pinch of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of minced shallot. Bruise these with a wooden or silver spoon, and work them to a paste with a little salad oil. Add oil by degrees till your paste is about the consistency of batter, then toss into it one by one the raw yolks of three eggs, continue the working, and add oil, till you have a nice rich sauce coating the spoon pretty thickly : you can now dole out a dessert-spoonful of tarragon or other aromatic vinegar, and mix it thoroughly with the other ingredients : the sauce will become creamy the moment it receives the vinegar. Taste your sauce by dipping a leaf of lettuce into a spoonful of it, and finish it off, as regards further addition of oil or vinegar, according to discretion. The eye, and the palate are your surest guides: no true salad-maker works by measure. As soon as you have got a creamy, well-flavoured sauce to suit your fancy, strain it through the little block tin strainer to get rid of every lump, and the little bits of onion. This should be done over the sauce-boat, which should be put into the ice box as soon as it is filled.

If you want a thick sauce of this kind, lightly flip the oil with the raw eggs adding it by degrees, and the mixture will soon be stiff enough, especially if you put in another raw yolk.

Use French mustard (moutard de maille) in preference to English. Never use Worcester sauce on any account whatever.

N.B. - In all rich salad, or mayonnaise dressings, cream may be used instead of oil, or be added to a made sauce as a finishing touch.

I recommend very strongly that the salad, nicely dressed in its bowl, and the icy-cold sauce in its boat, should be preserved separately, and handed round together. If you mix a salad of this kind before dinner, and let it soak, it deteriorates considerably before the time comes for its service. Cover up your nicely selected well dried lettuce leaves, etc., and they will be crisp, if handed round with their sauce following them, on the arrival of "the roast." This advice holds good with mayonnaise. The meat or fish of which the dish may be composed becomes sodden, and dead, and the green accompaniments fall off in crispness if bathed in dressing. Besides, after the meal, a mixed mayonnaise or salad is wasted, whereas one with which the sauce was separately served may be turned to account. You have in the former case only to pick the meat out of the lettuce leaves, and place it on a separate dish. The plain salad I first mentioned must, of course, be mixed the very last thing before dinner, unless you can boldly rise from the table, and mix it yourself at the exact time that it is wanted.