Mrs. Martha Bradley’s Salmagundy 1749

Appears in

Published 1932

Pick and wash three good lettuces, cut them as fine as threads and lay them at the bottom of a dish.
Cut the flesh from the breast of a couple of roasted chickens; it must be cut into thin slices as long and as broad as one’s fingers and not thicker than a shilling; spread them carefully over the lettuces in regular circles, leaving spaces between them.
Wash and bone and skin half a dozen fine anchovies, cut each into eight pieces, and lay them regularly between the slices of chicken.
Then cut the legs of the chickens into small square pieces like dice and cut a good lemon into square pieces in the same manner.
Boil 4 eggs hard; take out the yolks, mince them and mix them with some chopped parsley and 4 anchovies minced very small.
Boil some onions as big as walnuts till they are very white and tender.
Then pile up the minced anchovy and egg in the middle of the dish like a little sugar loaf; lay the onions round it and lay others thick round the edge of the dish.
When all is thus done, mix some oil and vinegar very well, beating it up with salt and pepper, and pour it carefully over the whole dish, then serve it up.
It is not only very soon ready for eating but makes a pretty appearance. There is as much nicety of hand shown in dressing up a Salmagundy as in anything.