ASPARAGUS SALAD.—­Cold asparagus makes a most delicious salad.  It is needless, perhaps, to say it is made from cold boiled asparagus.  The best dressing for asparagus salad is somewhat peculiar, and is made as follows:—­Take, say, an ounce of butter, put it in a saucer, and melt it in the oven till it is like oil.  Now mix in a teaspoonful of made mustard, some pepper, salt, and a dessertspoonful of vinegar.  Stir it all together, and as it gets cold it will begin to get thick.  Dip all the green part of the asparagus in this, and lay the heads gently, without breaking them, in a vegetable dish, with the white stalk resting on the edge of the dish, and the green part in the middle.  Let the salad get perfectly cold, and then serve.  Of course, the sauce clings to the asparagus.  The asparagus is eaten with the fingers like hot asparagus—­a custom now generally recognised.

ARTICHOKE SALAD.—­This applies to French artichokes, not Jerusalem.  In France, artichokes are often served raw for breakfast, on a plate, with a little heap of chopped raw onion and another heap of chopped capers or parsley.  The Frenchman mixes a little oil or vinegar on his plate, adding the onion, &c., according to his taste.  The leaves are pulled off one by one, the white stalk part dipped in this dressing, and then eaten, by being drawn through the teeth.  The artichoke bottom is reserved for the finish as a bon bouche, something like a schoolboy who will eat all the pastry round a jam tart, leaving the centre for the finale.

BEET-ROOT SALAD.—­In boiling beet-roots be careful not to break them, or else they will bleed and lose their colour.  When the beet-root is boiled and cold, peel it, and cut it into thin slices.  It can be dressed with oil and vinegar, or vinegar only, adding pepper and salt.  Some persons dress beet-root with a salad-dressing in which cream is used instead of oil; but never use cream and oil.  To mix cream and oil is like mixing bacon with butter.

CUCUMBER SALAD.—­Peel a cucumber and cut it into slices as thin as possible.  We might almost add, thinner if possible.  Mix it with a little salt, and let it stand, tossing the cucumber about every now and then.  By this means you extract all the water from the cucumber.  Drain off this water, and add plenty of oil to the cucumber, and then mix it so that every slice comes in contact with the oil.  Now add a little pepper, and a very little vinegar, and mix it thoroughly.  If you add vinegar to cucumber before the oil some of the slices will taste like sour pickle, as the vinegar soaks into the cucumber.  Cucumber should be always served very cold, and is best placed in an ice-chest for an hour before serving.  Some people put a piece of ice on the top of the cucumber.

FRENCH BEAN SALAD.—­Cold boiled French beans make a very nice salad.  A little chopped parsley should be mixed with them, and the salad-bowl can be rubbed with a bead of garlic.  Some people soak the beans in vinegar first, and then add oil.  This would suit a German palate.  A better plan is to add the oil first, with pepper and salt, mix all well together, and then add the vinegar.