(2629). Crawfish Salad A La Maintenon (Salade D'Ecrevisses A La Maintenon)

In order to dress this salad in an elegant manner, and with a required solidity, it is better to fasten a wooden bottom to the dish, covering it with white paper and having on the upper outer edge a small wooden or cardboard ledge, and in the center a thin support equally covered with white paper. Detach the tails from the bodies of six or eight dozen large, cooked crawfish; suppress the tail shells and claws. Pare the meat from the tails, put it into a bowl, and season with salt, oil and vinegar; empty the crawfish bodies, and rub the insides through a sieve. Stuff about fifteen of these bodies, when well cleaned, with a salpicon composed of poached oysters and cooked truffles; mix in with it the meats from the claws, and the parings from the tails, and stir in a good white chaudfroid sauce (No. 596). Let the preparation become firm by keeping the stuffed bodies for half an hour in the refrigerator. Cut in small quarter-inch squares some cooked and cold fillets of sole and salmon, also some anchovy and herring fillets, some marinated tuna-fish, poached eggs, , potatoes and salt cucumbers; put this salpicon into a bowl, and season it with salt, oil, vinegar and mustard, then let macerate for one hour.

Drain off the seasoning, and add to it a mayonnaise with jelly (No. 613). Dress it dome-shaped on the wood fastened to the dish, and let it get firm for a quarter of an hour in the ice-box; remove the dish from the ice, and cover the dome with a layer of jellied mayonnaise (No. 613). Stick in the crawfish tails one by one, with the point of a larding needle so that they lay symmetrically against the dome in two graduated rows; cover them at once with half-set jelly, and garnish the hollow of the second or top row with a bunch of green leaves or a bunch of chopped jelly. Send a sauce-boat of mayonnaise (No. 606) to the table at the same time.

Fig. 539.

(2630). Crawfish Salad With Jelly (Salade D'Ecrevisses A La Gelee)

Detach the tails from the bodies of several dozen cooked crawfish; suppress the shells from the tails and largest legs; pare the meats, season, and keep them covered. Prepare a macedoine salad (No. 2650), cut into small dice, add to it the legs and parings of shrimps, also cut in dice; season with salt, oil and vinegar, and let marinate for one hour. Select a plain border mold with a narrow cylinder, imbed it in broken ice, and decorate its sides with eggs cut in two, alternated with some small vegetable balls dipped in half set jelly; till up the empty space in the mold gradually with some partly cold jelly (No. 103). Drain the salad on a sieve, lay it back into the bowl and mix in with it a jellied mayonnaise (No. 618); stir it on ice for a few minutes. Unmold the border on a cold dish; place into the cylindrical space a wooden foundation of exactly the same diameter, having on the center a light upright support, both being covered with white paper; lay the salad around this support, giving it a pyramidical shape, smooth the surfaces, and cover it with a thin layer of thick jellied mayonnaise ( No. 613); keep for two minutes on ice.

Stick in the crawfish tails one by one, using a larding needle for the purpose, first dipping them in half-set jelly, then fasten them to the salad in three graduated rows, each one laying in a different direction, and forming a pyramid. As soon as each row is finished coat it over with some half-set jelly to consolidate it; in the hollow of the third or top row lay a pretty lettuce heart, and serve a sauce-boat of mayonnaise sauce (No. 606) at the same time as the salad.

Fig. .540.