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MAYONNAISE SAUCE (another way)
Mix-smoothly together the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and the yolk of a raw one, with a salt-spoonful of salt, one of pepper, and one of mustard. Then add, a few drops at a time, a quarter of a pint of best salad-oil, and half that quantity of vinegar, stirring and rubbing well all the time, to prevent the oil from settling on the top. When these ingredients are mixed to a smooth batter, add two table-spoonfuls of good gravy or jelly, one of rich cream, the juice of half a lemon, and one shallot, pounded. The secret of making this sauce is to mix it thoroughly, and add the different ingredients very gradually. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient to cover a moderate-sized dish of cold meat, fish, etc.
This is a cooked-yolk mayonnaise, closer to a French sauce rémoulade base than to the all-raw emulsion most cooks make now. The hard-boiled yolks make it forgiving, but the proportions need translating.
- The hinge: add the oil in dropsWith only one raw yolk to a quarter pint of oil the emulsion is fragile and may split if you pour. Work the oil in a few drops at a time until the mixture visibly thickens, then continue in a slow thread. The recipe's wording suggests the vinegar goes in gradually alongside the oil rather than all at the end, though it does not say so outright.
- A quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter pint is 5 fl oz, about 2/3 cup of oil, with half that -- 2 1/2 fl oz, roughly 1/3 cup -- of vinegar. That is a very sharp ratio by modern taste; start with half the vinegar, finish with the lemon, and add more only if you want it that acid.
- Salt-spoonfulA Victorian salt spoon held about 1/4 teaspoon. So 1/4 teaspoon each of salt, pepper and mustard, the mustard being dry English mustard powder rather than anything from a jar.
- Gravy or jellyThis means well-reduced meat stock or the set aspic jelly from under a cold roast, which contributed gelatine, body and savour. A tablespoon or two of reduced brown stock, chilled to a soft set, does the same; skip it entirely for a fish dish.
- Best salad-oilIn an English kitchen of this date that meant olive oil, of whatever quality could be had. A strong modern extra-virgin oil can taste harsh in a sauce worked this hard, so a milder olive oil, or a neutral oil blended with a little good olive oil, suits better.
- The shallotPounded raw shallot goes on developing in strength as the sauce sits. Pound it to a genuine paste in a mortar so no fibres remain, and taste after half an hour before adding more.
- Eggs and keepingThe raw yolk is never cooked, so use pasteurised eggs if you are serving anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised. Refrigerate at once and use within a day, particularly if the meat jelly has gone in.
- YieldSomething over a cup of finished sauce (roughly 10 fl oz before the yolks), which matches the book's "moderate-sized dish of cold meat, fish, etc."
Cassell's gives several mayonnaises in succession -- this one is headed "another way" -- and it shows an older English understanding of the sauce: not simply oil and raw yolk, but a compounded dressing built on hard-boiled yolks, mustard and a spoonful of the meat jelly left from a roast. That touch belongs to the cold-larder cookery of the late nineteenth-century household, where a joint was served hot once and then eaten cold, and where dressings of this kind made the later appearances palatable. The "Probable cost, 1s." is characteristic of Cassell's, which gives a costing for most of its recipes.