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Sweet Salad Dressing
Rub smoothly together 2 tablespoonfuls of olive-oil or butter, 2/3 of a cupful of water, 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar, 1/4 teaspoonful of salt, and 1 dessertspoonful of corn flour. Let this boil for a moment or two over a fire, then add 2 tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. When cold, pour over the salads. If a yellow color is desired, add the beaten yolk of an egg just as the dressing is removed from the fire, pouring it over the egg, a little at a time, stirring well. When the egg is used, a little less water and more lemon juice may be required.
This dressing is an especially good one to use on finely sliced apples, apples and celery, apples and ripe bananas, strawberries and bananas, and on pineapple and oranges. If the dressing is put on as soon as the fruit is sliced, the fruit will not turn dark.
By using a cup of strained stewed tomatoes in place of the water in this dressing, another palatable and very pretty dressing is made.
A cooked, cornstarch-thickened fruit dressing from the era before bottled mayonnaise, sweet-sharp rather than creamy. It is simple, but two details in the wording need translating.
- "Corn flour" means cornstarchIn this period the term is used for the pure white starch, not the finely milled cornmeal sold as corn flour in American shops today. Use cornstarch; cornmeal will give you a gritty, porridge-like dressing.
- A dessertspoonfulTwo teaspoons, midway between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. That thickens roughly two-thirds of a cup of liquid to a light pouring consistency, not a pudding.
- Boil it properly"A moment or two" is the hinge. Cornstarch must actually reach a full boil and be held there briefly or the mixture stays cloudy and tastes raw and chalky. Stir constantly; it thickens all at once.
- Add the lemon off the heatAcid stirred into a starch that is still boiling can thin the thickening. The recipe simply says to add the juice after the brief boil; it is safer to pull the pan off the fire first, then stir the juice in.
- The egg-yolk versionThe instruction to pour the hot mixture over the yolk a little at a time is tempering, and it must be done slowly or the yolk scrambles. The yolk is warmed but not held at a cooking temperature, so use a pasteurized egg if you are serving anyone very young, elderly or pregnant.
- Butter or oilWith butter the dressing sets slightly firmer when chilled and needs a brisk whisk before use. A grassy modern extra-virgin will dominate sliced fruit; a mild oil suits it better.
- The browning claimSound advice. The lemon juice and the coating of starch both slow enzymatic browning on apples and bananas, which is why the dressing is meant to go on the moment the fruit is cut.
- Yield and keepingMakes roughly a cup, enough to dress fruit salad for four to six. Covered in the refrigerator it should hold a couple of days and will likely need thinning with a spoonful of water.
- The tomato variationStrained stewed tomato in place of the water gives a sweet-sour dressing; the recipe does not say what to put it on, though it would suit a green salad more obviously than sliced fruit. Strain it well or the starch sets around the pulp in lumps.
Cooked or boiled dressings were common in American households through the later nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, and they appear frequently alongside true mayonnaise in domestic cookbooks: they used little or no oil, which was costly and could be rancid, and they could be made without the arm-work of emulsifying by hand. This version dispenses with mustard and vinegar in favour of sugar and lemon, aiming at the fruit salad, a dish that grew fashionable around the turn of the century as citrus, bananas and canned pineapple reached ordinary tables by rail and steamship. The suggested combinations -- apple and celery, strawberry and banana, pineapple and orange -- reflect what a well-supplied American kitchen of the period could assemble.