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Boiled Salad Dressing
Mix 1 tablespoonful of sugar, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1/4 of a teaspoonful of pepper, and 1 small teaspoonful of French mustard, with 3 teaspoonfuls of melted butter or olive-oil. Beat 3 eggs until light, then add 1 cupful of milk, stir well, then add the seasoning with the melted butter. When ready to cook add 2/3 of a cupful of vinegar and place over boiling water. Stir until it thickens, then remove from the fire and set in a pan of cold water. Beat for two minutes. This will keep for several days.
A cooked egg-and-milk dressing of the kind that preceded mayonnaise in most American kitchens. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat: this is a thin custard, and it will scramble if it goes over direct flame.
- Double boiler, not a saucepan"Place over boiling water" means a bowl or the top of a double boiler set above simmering water, never in contact with it. The mixture thickens somewhere around 170-180F and curdles not far above that.
- French mustardIn this period the phrase generally means a smooth prepared mustard of the French type, as against English mustard made up from dry powder. Dijon is the closest current equivalent; the recipe calls for 1 small teaspoonful.
- Add the vinegar last, and coldAdd the vinegar last -- The recipe holds the 2/3 cup of vinegar back until 'ready to cook'. Acid standing on milk and eggs can begin to curdle them before any heat is applied, though the recipe itself gives no reason for the order.
- Reading the thickeningStir constantly with a flat wooden spoon or whisk and stop the moment the dressing coats the back of the spoon. It will look thinner than mayonnaise while hot and set noticeably as it cools.
- The cold-water bath mattersSetting the pan in cold water and beating for two minutes halts the cooking and helps smooth out any incipient graininess.
- If it does breakA dressing that has gone lumpy can usually be rescued by pushing it through a fine sieve while still warm, or by a short burst in a blender once cooled.
- Yield and useSomething over two cups, thin enough to pour. The recipe does not say what it is for; dressings of this type were commonly used on cabbage slaw, potato salad and cold cooked vegetables, where their sharpness suits starchy foods better than an oil dressing.
- "Keep for several days"Written for a cool cellar or icebox. Refrigerate in a covered jar and treat it as you would a custard: three or four days, no longer, and whisk before using since it stiffens when chilled.