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Lobster-Salad Dressing
Mayonnaise is the most suitable dressing for lobster salad. If oil is not liked, a dressing may be made with the yolks of 3 eggs which have been boiled hard and cooled. Rub them in a bowl with the back of a silver spoon until quite smooth. Add 1 teaspoonful of mixed mustard, 1/2 saltspoonful of pepper, 1 tablespoonful of cream, and 1 tablespoonful of vinegar. Beat until thoroughly mixed. A few drops of oil may be added if liked.
An oil-free alternative to mayonnaise, built on hard-cooked yolks rather than raw ones. The whole success of it is in the rubbing: any lump of yolk left whole will show up as a grainy speck in the finished dressing.
- Get the yolks perfectly smooth firstPress the cooled yolks through a fine sieve, or work them against the bowl with the back of a spoon until they are a uniform paste, before any liquid goes in. Adding the cream and vinegar to lumpy yolk gives a curdled-looking dressing that no amount of beating will smooth out.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so the half-saltspoonful here is roughly 1/8 teaspoon of pepper. Use white pepper if you object to black flecks against pale lobster meat.
- SaltThe original lists no salt. Season to taste at the end, remembering that the lobster itself is already saline.
- Mixed mustardThis means mustard already made up into a paste with liquid, not dry mustard powder. Any smooth prepared mustard works; note that period "mixed mustard" was usually mustard flour made up with water or vinegar, so its strength was closer to English mustard than to Dijon.
- The silver spoonSilver was probably specified because it does not react with vinegar the way iron or tin-lined utensils of the period could. Stainless steel, glass or ceramic all serve the same purpose now.
- Consistency and vinegarThree yolks with a tablespoon each of cream and vinegar makes a thick paste rather than a pourable dressing. Loosen it with more cream a teaspoon at a time; add vinegar only if you want it sharper, since too much makes it thin and harsh.
- YieldRoughly 1/3 cup, enough to dress the meat of one 1 1/2 to 2 lb lobster serving three or four. Toss it through the lobster just before serving so the meat does not weep.
- StorageCream and cooked egg give this a short life. Keep it covered in the refrigerator and use it within a day.