Home › Introductory Recipes › French Dressing
French Dressing
Mix well one-half teaspoon each of salt and pepper with one tablespoon of lemon juice (or fruit vinegar). Pour this gradually, stirring the while, on three tablespoons of olive oil. Toss the salad in this thoroughly. Melted butter may be substituted for the oil.
A three-ingredient vinaigrette in the older ratio — three parts oil to one part acid — with instructions that assume you are dressing the salad the moment it is mixed.
- Dissolve the salt firstThe salt and pepper go into the lemon juice, not the oil, because salt will not dissolve in fat. Stir until the grains are gone before the oil goes in, or the dressing will taste gritty and unevenly seasoned.
- The pepper measure is heavyHalf a teaspoon of pepper against one tablespoon of acid is aggressive by current taste. The recipe says nothing about the grind. Start with a quarter teaspoon and adjust.
- Pour gradually, stirringThis is the hinge. The seasoned juice goes into the oil in a thin stream, stirring the while, which gives a temporary emulsion that clings to the leaves; combined all at once it separates quickly and slides to the bottom of the bowl.
- "Fruit vinegar"In books of this period this means a vinegar flavoured by steeping raspberries, currants or similar fruit, not commercial fruit-flavoured dressing. Cider vinegar or a good raspberry vinegar is the nearest equivalent.
- The olive oil available thenThe olive oil -- Imported table oil of this period could be milder and less fresh than what is sold now. A modern peppery extra-virgin will dominate delicate fruit; a light or mild olive oil is likely closer to the intended effect.
- The melted butter substitutionIt works only while warm and on a salad served warm; cooled butter sets into flecks on cold leaves or fruit. Why it was offered the recipe does not say.
- YieldFour tablespoons total, enough for a salad for two to three. Scale up in the same 3:1 proportion.
- Dress at the last momentSalt and acid draw juice out of fruit and wilt greens within minutes. Toss immediately before the salad goes to the table.
French dressing meant precisely this in American cookbooks before the Second World War: oil, an acid, salt and pepper, mixed and used at once. The creamy orange bottled product that now carries the name is a later commercial invention, and the two share little beyond the words. In a fruit cookery book, the substitution of lemon juice or a fruit vinegar for plain cider or wine vinegar is the small adjustment that ties the formula to the fruit. The proportion of three parts oil to one part acid is generally traced to French household practice, and it remains the working ratio for a vinaigrette today.