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Cream Salad Dressing
Two tablespoons of Larkin Corn Starch Yolks of four eggs One-half teaspoon of Larkin Mustard One teaspoon of sugar One teaspoon of Larkin Table Salt Dash of Larkin Cayenne Pepper Juice of one lemon Cut one onion in half and scrape the juice One-fourth cup of vinegar Mix the dry ingredients with the eggs, and vinegar. Add one quart of cream, sweet or sour, cooking until thickened; add two tablespoons of Larkin Olive Oil, if desired.
A cooked, boiled-style dressing of the sort that preceded mayonnaise in most American households. The recipe is sound but written for a family that used dressing by the pint; scale it down and control the heat.
- The hinge: gentle heatYolks begin to set somewhere in the region of 160-180F, and the cornstarch needs enough heat and time to lose its raw taste. Cook in a double boiler or over low direct heat, stirring constantly, and take it off when it coats the spoon; the starch offers some protection, but a hard boil risks curdling the yolks.
- QuantityOne quart of cream yields roughly five cups of dressing. A quarter of the recipe (1 yolk, 1½ teaspoons cornstarch, 1 cup cream, 1 tablespoon vinegar, a squeeze of lemon) is enough for a large salad for six.
- "Cream, sweet or sour"Sweet cream is plain heavy cream. Sour cream in a household of this period generally meant raw cream left to sour naturally — thinner and tangier than the thick cultured product sold today. For that version use heavy cream with a couple of tablespoons of buttermilk, or thin modern sour cream with milk to pouring consistency.
- Larkin brand namesLarkin Corn Starch, Table Salt, Mustard, Cayenne and Olive Oil are simply cornstarch, salt, mustard, cayenne and olive oil. The mustard is most likely the dry powdered kind, since it is mixed in with the dry ingredients, rather than a prepared jarred mustard.
- Onion juiceCutting an onion across the equator and scraping the cut face with a teaspoon edge gives juice and pulp without pieces. A quarter teaspoon of the juice is plenty for a scaled-down batch; the full onion's worth in one quart is assertive.
- Order of mixingWhisk the cornstarch, mustard, sugar, salt and cayenne together dry before the yolks go in, or the starch will lump. Add the vinegar and lemon juice next, then the cream — acid whisked into the cold base is far less likely to curdle than acid stirred into a hot one.
- Oil at the endThe optional olive oil belongs off the heat, whisked into the finished dressing while it is still warm. Added at the start it tends to separate as the custard sets.
- Keeping and servingCool uncovered, then refrigerate; it thickens considerably when cold and can be loosened with a spoonful of milk or vinegar. Being an egg-and-dairy dressing, use it within three or four days. It suits shredded cabbage, potato salad, cold chicken and head lettuce better than delicate greens, which it weighs down.
Cooked dressings like this one were the standard American salad sauce well before mayonnaise became a household staple: cheaper than a cup of oil, more stable in a warm pantry, and thickened with cornstarch or flour so that a cook could not easily break it. The relentless brand names mark this as a manufacturer's premium cookbook — the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York, built a mail-order empire on soap and groceries sold through neighborhood "Larkin Clubs," and recipe booklets that named a Larkin product in every line were part of the machinery. The instruction to use cream "sweet or sour" is a reminder that in a house with a cream crock and no refrigeration, sour cream was not a purchase but a stage; recipes were written to accept whatever the pan held that morning.