This section is from the book "The Cook Book By "Oscar" Of The Waldorf", by Oscar Tschirky. Also see: How to Cook Everything.
Take the meat from the shells and claws of a dozen small crabs, season with salt and pepper, and add three tablespoonfuls of vinegar, two tablespoonfuls of sweet oil, and a little chopped parsley. Decorate the bowl with lettuce leaves, six stoned olives, twelve capers, and two hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters. It is then ready to be served.
Choose three dozen crayfish and boil them; when done, take out and let cool. Remove the meat from the claws and tails, place it in a basin, add a little seasoning, and cover with oil and vinegar. Remove the flesh from the small claws, also from the trimmings of the tails, mix them into a lettuce and cress salad cut up into shreds, season with salt and add a little mayonnaise sauce to thicken. Take a plain border mould and put ice all round it. Then divide four hard-boiled eggs into halves, dip them on one side only into a little half-set aspic jelly and put them into the mould in an upright position with the points directed to the bottom, cutting away a portion of the sides to the shape of the side of the mould. In the course of a few minutes fill the mould up with aspic jelly and allow it to get cold and set; then about fifteen minutes before it is required, turn it out onto a dish (quite cold). Arrange the salad in the form of a pyramid in the cavity of the border. Take the tails, one at a time, and with the aid of a larding-needle, place them in a circle on the salad. Garnish an attelette skewer with a truffle and put it in the top. Serve a sauceboatful of mayonnaise sauce with this.
Mix together equal proportions of white wine, vinegar and salad oil, season with a small quantity of moist sugar and a little salt, and turn it into a salad-bowl. Throw in some sprigs of watercress, and on these strew lightly the leaves of young nasturtiums, with sufficient garden-cress to fill the bowl. Toss this well, and then turn it out onto a large dish. Arrange a wreath of nasturtium leaves around the edge of the dish, allowing them to overlap each other, then put an inner circle of the flowers, and in that a circle of sliced hard-boiled eggs. Serve before the freshness of the salad has disappeared.
Take one quart of white dandelion, pare away the roots and stale leaves and wash thoroughly in two waters; drain on a cloth and place in a salad-bowl. Dilute a pinch of salt, half a pinch of pepper and one tablespoonful of vinegar, adding one tablespoonful and a half of sweet oil. Mix thoroughtly, pour over the salad, and serve.
Take one quart of white dandelion, pare and wash well using several waters, drain on a cloth, arrange in a salad-bowl and season with salt and pepper. Cut into dice-shaped pieces two ounces of bacon and put in a fryingpan on the fire until they get a good golden color, which will take about five minutes, and add them to the salad. Pour into the pan two tablespoonfuls of vinegar and let it heat for half a minute, then pour it over all, mix well together, and serve.
 
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