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Mayonnaise Dressing
Have everything as cold as possible, and in warm weather it is well to set the plate in which the dressing is made on a piece of ice. Into a cold soup plate drop the yolk of egg, squeeze upon it 1 teaspoonful of lemon juice and stir until well mixed. Add, drop by drop, a cupful of salad-oil, beating constantly until the mixture becomes quite thick, and being careful not to reverse the motion, as the oil and egg may separate. Season with 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1 saltspoonful of mustard, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Thin the dressing with 1 tablespoonful of vinegar.
A classic hand-beaten mayonnaise from the era before mechanical mixers, built on a single raw yolk in a chilled soup plate. The technique is sound; the food safety is not, because nothing in the process ever reaches a temperature that would kill Salmonella.
- The raw yolk is the problemThe emulsion is never heated at any stage, so a contaminated yolk stays contaminated in the finished dressing. Shell eggs were treated as a safe raw ingredient throughout the nineteenth century; that assumption no longer holds, and salads dressed with raw-yolk mayonnaise are a recurring source of outbreaks.
- The acid does not sterilise itOne teaspoonful of lemon juice and one tablespoonful of vinegar in a cup and a quarter of dressing leaves the pH too high, and the effect too slow, to be relied on as a kill step. Any recipe made this way should be replaced with a current one built on pasteurised egg.
- Warm-weather standing timeThe instruction to set the plate on ice is about keeping the emulsion from breaking rather than about safety. Bacterial growth in a low-acid raw-egg mixture held at room temperature is a hazard the recipe does not address.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so the mustard here is 1/4 teaspoon; in a recipe of this kind it would most likely be dry mustard powder.
- "Salad-oil"In this period the term usually meant olive oil. A full cup of oil to a single yolk is a demanding proportion, which is part of why the oil goes in drop by drop and the beating is kept in one direction.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 cups of finished dressing.