This is a very delicious salad, met with in Italy. It consists of a great variety of boiled vegetables, which are placed in a mould and served in aspic jelly. This latter, however, is not allowed in vegetarian cookery. A very good imitation, however, can be made as follows:--First take as many cold vegetables as you can, consisting of new potatoes, sliced, and cut up with a cutter into pretty-looking shapes. You can also take green peas, asparagus tops, cold boiled cauliflower, French beans, beet-root, &c. These vegetables should be dressed with a little oil, tarragon vinegar, pepper and salt, and can be placed in a mould or plain round basin. This basin can now be filled up with a little water thickened with corn-flour, hot. When it is cold, it can be turned out and sent to table in the shape of a mould.
Ten truffles, a quarter of a pint of salad oil, pepper and salt to taste, one tablespoonful of minced parsley, a very little finely minced garlic, two blades of pounded mace, one tablespoonful of lemon juice. After cleansing and brushing the truffles, cut them into thin slices and put them in a baking-dish, on a seasoning of oil or butter, pepper, salt, parsley, garlic and mace in the above proportion. Bake them for nearly an hour, and just before serving add the lemon juice and send them to the table very hot.
Cut one carrot and one turnip into slices, and cook them in boiling soup. When cold, mix them with two cold boiled potatoes and one beet cut into strips. Add a very little chopped leeks or onion, pour some sauce, "Lombarda" (see Sauces, page 31), over the salad, and garnish with water-cress.
Boil the macaroni, or use any cold that may be in the larder. Cut it into pieces about three inches long, cut the cheese into very thin slices, and cut the celery into very small pieces. Lay these alternately in a bowl with some shredded lettuce. Make a dressing of the mustard, oil, and vinegar, and pour it over. Garnish with a little beetroot, and serve.
Sparghetti is a peculiar form of macaroni. Ordinary macaroni is made in the form of long tubes, and when macaroni pudding is served in schools, it is often irreverently nicknamed by the boys gas-pipes. Sparghetti is not a tube, but simply macaroni made in the shape of ordinary wax-tapers, which it resembles very much in appearance. In Italy it is often customary to commence dinner with a dish of sparghetti, and should the dinner consist as well of soup, fish, entree, salad, and sweet, the sparghetti would be served before the soup. Take, say, half a pound of sparghetti, wash it in cold water, and throw it instantly into boiling salted water; boil it till it is tender, about twenty minutes, drain it, put it into a hot vegetable-dish, and mix in two or three tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese; toss it about lightly with a couple of forks, till the cheese melts and forms what may be called cobwebs on tossing it about. Add also two tablespoonfuls of tomato conserve (sold by all grocers, in bottles), and serve immediately. This is very cheap, very satisfying, and very nourishing; and it is to be regretted that this popular dish is not more often used by those who are not vegetarians, who would benefit both in pocket and in health were they to lessen their butcher's bill by at any rate commencing dinner, like the Italians, with a dish of sparghetti.
Wash the herring in cold water and soak it in milk for an hour; cut it open and take out the bone and slice up both the fish and the meat. Arrange in a bowl, chop the capers and put over. Put the mustard into a basin, add gradually the oil and vinegar; pour this, when well mixed, over the fish and meat, and cover with slices of cold potatoes. Garnish with any cold vegetables in the larder or with some green pickles from a bottle of pickles, a little chopped parsley, and some small radishes.
Boil both the macaroni and the beetroot by directions given elsewhere. When quite cold, peel and slice up the beetroot and cut the macaroni into pieces about two inches long; arrange them in alternate layers on a dish. Blend the oil and vinegar with the salt and pepper and pour it over; let it stand for an hour, basting continually with the oil and vinegar. By that time it should be of a bright red colour. It is then ready to serve.
