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Salad Dressing (No. 2)
One-half cup sour cream, 1 cup vinegar, pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon Five Roses flour, 1 egg, 2 teaspoons mustard. Cook well together.
A boiled dressing of the kind that preceded bottled mayonnaise in most Canadian kitchens: egg and flour thicken it, vinegar sharpens it, cream softens it. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat.
- Low heat or a double boiler"Cook well together" means cook until it thickens to the consistency of thin custard, no more. Over direct high heat the egg scrambles and the cream breaks; a double boiler or a very low burner with constant whisking is the safe route. Thickening takes roughly 5-8 minutes.
- The vinegar is assertiveA full cup of vinegar to half a cup of cream is a sharper ratio than modern palates usually want, and the strength of vinegars then in use varied a good deal from today's standard 5 percent. Start with half the vinegar, thicken, then add the rest to taste.
- Mustard means dry mustardMustard probably means dry mustard -- In a list of this period, "2 teaspoons mustard" most likely means powdered mustard rather than the prepared yellow condiment. Whisk it into the flour before any liquid goes in so it does not clump.
- Sour cream then and nowOriginal sour cream was cream left to sour naturally, thinner and tangier than the cultured, stabilised product in tubs today. Modern full-fat sour cream works; the gums in light or fat-free versions can turn grainy when heated.
- Flour as the thickenerOne teaspoon of flour in a cup and a half of liquid is a very light bind — the egg does most of the work. Cook the flour with the liquid long enough to lose its raw taste, about two minutes after it thickens.
- Salt and sugarThe recipe gives only a pinch of salt and no sugar. Many boiled dressings of the period included a little sugar to balance the acid; taste and adjust once it has cooled, since chilling mutes both salt and sweetness.
- Yield and keepingThis makes about a cup and a half, enough for a large bowl of shredded cabbage or potato salad. It thickens further as it cools; refrigerate and use within three or four days, thinning with a little cream if needed.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and built from recipes submitted by Canadian housewives who used the company's flour, which explains why a teaspoon of flour is named by brand in a dressing that scarcely needs it. Boiled dressings like this one were the everyday standard before commercially bottled mayonnaise became widely available in North America — they used a whole egg rather than a bowlful of yolks, kept better without refrigeration because of the heavy dose of vinegar, and did not require the patience or the cold hands that hand-beaten mayonnaise demanded. Sour cream in the dressing points to a farm or small-town kitchen where cream soured on its own before it was thrown out, and the pairing of sharp vinegar with dry mustard is the same logic behind the cabbage and root-vegetable salads that filled out Canadian winter tables.