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Cream Salad Dressing
3 hard boiled egg yolks 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon powdered sugar 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/2 teaspoon mustard 2 tablespoons vinegar 2 cups cream Whip the cream until thick; rub the egg yolks to a smooth paste, add the mixed seasonings, combine with the whipped cream and beat until smooth.
A cooked-yolk dressing thickened by whipped cream rather than emulsified oil. It is closer to a sauce than to modern mayonnaise, and it depends entirely on the cream holding its air.
- Use real heavy cream"Cream" here means cream that will whip, roughly 36% butterfat. Ultra-pasteurized whipping cream works but takes longer and holds less air; light or half-and-half will not whip at all.
- Powdered sugarIn books of this period "powdered sugar" usually means finely ground granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. A quarter teaspoon of either will disappear into the dressing without consequence.
- MustardDry mustard powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. Mix it into the vinegar with the salt and pepper and let it stand a minute or two so the pungency develops before it meets the cream.
- Add the vinegar carefullyAcid can slacken whipped cream, so combine the vinegar with the yolk paste first, then fold that mixture into the cream a spoonful at a time and stop beating as soon as it is uniform.
- Sieve the yolksRubbing three hard-cooked yolks "to a smooth paste" is easiest through a fine sieve with the back of a spoon. Any lump that survives will show as a yellow speck in the finished dressing.
- Yield and servingTwo cups of cream whip to about four cups, enough dressing for a large bowl of salad. It suits cabbage, cold cooked vegetables, fruit and chicken salads better than delicate greens, which it weighs down.
- TimingMake it within an hour or two of serving and keep it cold. It will slowly weep and deflate in the refrigerator, and it does not respond well to re-beating.
Cream and boiled dressings like this one were common in American households for salads before jarred mayonnaise became a grocery staple in the 1910s and 1920s. Where French practice built a dressing on oil, American home cooks often thickened instead with hard-cooked yolks, cream, or a flour-and-egg base cooked over water, sharpening it with vinegar and dry mustard.