French Dressing
½ teaspoon salt. ⅛ teaspoon pepper. 1/4 teaspoon paprika. 6 tablespoons olive oil. 2 tablespoons vinegar.
PROCESS: Rub the mixing bowl with a bruised clove of garlic; add salt, pepper, paprika and oil; beat until ingredients are thoroughly blended, adding vinegar slowly meanwhile. A piece of ice put into bowl while stirring will aid in chilling the mixture.
A standard turn-of-the-century vinaigrette at three parts oil to one part vinegar. The only real technique is getting the oil and vinegar to hold together long enough to serve.
- Season by taste, not by the numbersA full teaspoon of pepper in half a cup of dressing is aggressive by current palates, and the 1½ teaspoons of salt will read as very salty on delicate lettuce. Start with a quarter of each and adjust once the dressing is mixed.
- The garlic is a whisper, not an ingredientRubbing a bruised clove around the bowl leaves only a trace of allium — the intent is a background note, not garlic dressing. If you want it forward, grate a small clove straight into the oil instead.
- Add the vinegar slowly, and keep beatingThis is the hinge. Oil and vinegar with no mustard, egg or honey form only a mechanical emulsion, so it breaks within minutes. Dribbling the vinegar in while whisking hard buys you a thick, opaque dressing that will hold just long enough to dress and serve.
- About that piece of iceCold does help a temporary emulsion hold, but the ice melts into the dressing and thins it. A chilled metal bowl, or ten minutes in the refrigerator before the final whisking, does the same job without watering it down.
- Vinegar and oilThe recipe specifies only "vinegar" and "olive oil," with no type or grade given. Any wine vinegar at around 5 percent acidity works; if your vinegar is sharper, pull it back toward four tablespoons of oil to one of vinegar.
- YieldHalf a cup, enough for a large salad for six. Whisk again immediately before it goes to the table.
Nineteenth-century American cookbooks divided salad dressings into two camps: the cooked or boiled dressing thickened with egg and flour, and this uncooked "French dressing" of oil, vinegar and seasoning — the name signalling continental practice rather than any specific French recipe. A raw dressing suits tender early-summer greens that a hot boiled dressing would wilt.