Frog Salad

One pound of white, medium-sized frogs, with artichokes and French dressing.

From: Ninety-Nine Salads and How to Make Them
Published: 1897
Yikes Scale: Iffy

Exactly as printed, 1897

One pound white, medium sized frogs, onehalf teaspoonful salt, one teaspoonful pepper, one tablespoonful butter, one tablespoonful lemon juice, two artichokes, three potatoes, three hard boiled eggs, rule for French dressing. Cook the frogs in water until tender, and season with salt, pepper, butter and lemon juice; when cold cut the meat into inch squares, and put them into a bowl with cooked artichoke bottoms, potatoes and hard boiled eggs, all cut the same size as the frogs. Macerate with French dressing for fifteen minutes. Drain the salad in a sieve, and arrange it in a salad bowl, dressing it with a mayonnaise, and smoothing the top to a dome. Split some lobster claw meat in two, season and form into a rosette in the center of the salad; decorate around with truffles and gherkins, having a lettuce heart exactly in the middle.

Ninety-Nine Salads and How to Make Them, 1897. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

This is a perfectly good salad. Frogs' legs are lean, mild and closer to chicken than to fish, and they are sold frozen in pairs at plenty of counters.

The only thing to get right is the cooking. Frog meat is fine-grained and turns cottony fast — a bare simmer for five to eight minutes, and no longer.

Notes from the 21st century

“One pound of frogs” means dressed. In practice the hind legs. A pound of live frogs would yield a great deal less than the recipe expects.
Wild-caught is a different question. Wild amphibians carry parasites. Farmed and frozen legs from a supplier are the ordinary route.
Ninety-Nine Salads is exactly what it says. A single-subject book from an era that produced a great many of them. The frog salad is number one of ninety-nine.

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

Read the original page →

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