French Dressing

French dressing is a mixture of fine olive-oil, vinegar or lemon-juice, or both, salt, Cayenne pepper, and onion-juice. The following proportions will make enough for one head of lettuce:

1 Tablespoon of oil. A bit of cayenne. 1/2 Saltspoon of salt. 4 Drops of onion-juice. 1 Teaspoon of lemon-juice. 1 Teaspoon of vinegar.

Mix all together well. This dressing may be used with lettuce, tomatoes, cold meat, potato salad, and to marinate chicken, lobster, and crab when they are to be used for salads.

Lettuce Salad

Prepare ahead of lettuce by washing each leaf separately in a stream of water, tearing off any portion that is bruised or brown, and looking carefully for little green creatures that may be lodged in the creases; they are not easily seen. Then drain the lettuce on a fresh towel or napkin, for if the leaves are very wet the dressing will not cling to them. Next tear it to pieces with the fingers, rejecting the large part of the midrib, put it into a deep bowl, pour on a French dressing, and toss it with a wooden salad-spoon and fork until all the lettuce seems oiled. Serve immediately.

Mayonnaise dressing may be used instead of the French dressing in this salad.

Tomato Salad

Wash in cold water and wipe some fair, ripe tomatoes. Cut them in slices one third of an inch thick. Do not peel them. Arrange some clean white lettuce leaves on a silver or china platter, with two large leaves at either end, their stems toward the middle, and two small ones at the sides. Lay on them the slices of tomato, with their edges overlapping each other. Serve with this salad French dressing.

Potato Salad With Olives

Make a potato salad according to the foregoing rule, except substitute chopped olives for the beets, in the proportion of one eighth olives by measure to seven eighths potato.