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Boiled Salad Dressing
3 eggs 1/4 cup oil 1/4 cup lemon juice 1/4 cup water 1 teaspoon celery salt 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons sugar (this may be omitted) In a double boiler heat all the ingredients except the eggs. Beat the eggs, add to them some of the hot mixture, mix well, then stir the eggs into the hot mixture, and cook, stirring, till the mixture is of the consistency of thick cream. Too long cooking will cause the mixture to separate and look rough or curdled.
A custard-style dressing thickened by egg alone, with no flour or starch and only a token amount of oil. It behaves like a thin savoury custard, and the whole recipe turns on not overheating it.
- The hinge: stop at the right temperatureEggs set at roughly 160-180F. Pull the pan the moment the dressing coats a spoon and leaves a clear track; past about 185F the proteins tighten and squeeze out the liquid, which is the "rough or curdled" look the recipe warns of. An instant-read thermometer removes the guesswork.
- TemperingAdding hot liquid to the beaten eggs before returning everything to the pan is not optional. Pour it in a thin stream while whisking, or the eggs will scramble on contact.
- Double boilerUse a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, with the bowl clear of the water itself. Direct heat will work if you whisk constantly over low, but the margin for error is small.
- Celery salt plus saltTwo teaspoons of salted seasoning against the recipe's three-quarters of a cup of liquid is assertive by current taste, and commercial celery salt varies in salt content. Start with half, then correct at the end.
- Lemon juiceBottled juice works but is flatter and more uniformly acidic; fresh gives a cleaner finish. The acid also helps the eggs set, so do not cut it back without expecting a looser dressing.
- Yield and consistencyMakes roughly a cup and a quarter, enough for a large bowl of salad or a batch of coleslaw. It thickens further as it cools, so take it off the heat slightly looser than you want it.
- Rescue and storageIf it starts to break, tip it at once into a cold bowl and whisk hard, or buzz it with an immersion blender. Keep it covered in the refrigerator and use within three or four days; thin with a spoonful of water or milk before serving.
- The sugarThe recipe treats it as optional, and it is. Two teaspoons will not read as sweet; it mainly rounds off the lemon.
Boiled dressings of this kind were common in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookbooks. Mayonnaise beaten by hand from raw yolks and a steady thread of oil was fussy and prone to breaking, and used a good deal of oil, while a cooked dressing used eggs, vinegar or lemon, and whatever fat was to hand. Many period recipes for boiled dressing thickened theirs with flour or cornstarch and softened them with milk or cream; this version is unusually lean, relying on egg alone and using water where others would use dairy. Commercial jarred mayonnaise, sold from the early twentieth century, became a general grocery staple later.