I’m enjoying making various summer salads, so when I saw a recipe in a hundred-year-old cookbook for Lettuce, Cucumber, and Chive salad, I decided to give it a try. The salad had a light vinaigrette-style dressing on it and was lovely.
Here’s the original recipe:
And, here is the original recipe for French Dressing:
I had a lovely bunch of leaf lettuce that I used to make this recipe. I’m not sure what type of lettuce the recipe author anticipated cooks using, but I did not try very hard to arrange the leaves as near as possible to the original shape. I thought that it was more important to have the lettuce in bite-size pieces than to worry about the shape.
The recipe called for serving this salad with French Dressing. I used a French Dressing recipe that was in the same cookbook as the salad recipe. It is a vinaigrette-style recipe and is quite different from the modern commercially-produced, orange-colored French Dressing. I’ve seen many French Dressing recipes in various hundred-year-old cookbooks over the years, and they have all have been vinaigrettes. I’m not sure when the shift occurred to the orange-colored type of French Dressing.
The French Dressing recipe called for a f.g. of cayenne (red pepper). I have no idea what unit of measure an “f.g.” is, but assumed that it wasn’t calling for much, so I interpreted it to mean a dash.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Lettuce, Cucumber, and Chive Salad
1 head/bunch lettuce
1 cucumber, peeled and thinly slices
3 tablespoons chives, finely chopped
Dressing
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
dash cayenne (red pepper)
2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
6 tablespoons olive oil
Wash and dry the lettuce, then tear into pieces and arrange on plates or in a bowl. Put the chopped chives on top of the cucumber slices. Just before serving, top with the dressing.
To make dressing, cut the garlic clove in half, then rub a small bowl with the cut garlic. Put the salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, tarragon vinegar and olive oil in bowl and stir vigorously to combine.
That dressing recipe sounds interesting. I’ll be giving it a try!
Perfect for the heatwave. I like to make my own dressing now and that is worth trying. Can you buy tarragon vinegar?
I adore simple salads like this. Sometimes, we make things too complicated, but a beautiful plate of fresh lettuce, lightly dressed, is a dream.
That looks good. f.g apparently means ‘a few grains’. How many is ‘a few’, I wonder?
The salad looks lovely! I have never seen a measurement f.g. before. A quick Google search wasn’t helpful either.
Definitely a supper idea during hot weather! And I have cucumbers a plenty right now.😄
This is pure salad perfection!