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Salt and Pepper (One gill of Salad Oil)
One gill of Salad Oil.
One tablespoonful of French Vinegar.
One teaspoonful of Tarragon Vinegar.
One teaspoonful of made Mustard.
One tablespoonful of chopped Gherkins or Capers.
Put the yolks into a basin, add salt and pepper, and stir well with a wooden spoon. Add the oil drop by drop, stirring well all the time. Then put in the mustard, vinegar, gherkins, or capers, and the sauce is ready.
This is a cold emulsified sauce of the mayonnaise family — in effect a tartare sauce — and it succeeds or fails on how the oil goes in.
- The hinge: oil drop by dropThe yolks must accept the oil slowly enough to stay emulsified. Add the first two tablespoons a few drops at a time, stirring constantly, and only then move to a thin steady stream. If it splits, start with a fresh yolk in a clean bowl and beat the broken sauce into it gradually.
- A gillAn imperial gill is 5 fl oz, a little over half a US cup; a US gill is 4 fl oz. The recipe does not say how many yolks to use — two would take five fluid ounces of oil comfortably, and a single yolk is workable but leaves less margin for error.
- Salad oilMeant a light, neutral oil — usually a mild olive oil of the day. Modern extra-virgin olive oil is far more assertive and can turn bitter under vigorous beating; a neutral oil, or a neutral oil cut with a little olive, gives the intended result.
- French vinegarMost likely white wine vinegar. Tarragon vinegar is still sold, and is easily made by steeping a few bruised sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week.
- Made mustardPrepared wet mustard, not mustard powder. Dijon is the closest match and also helps stabilise the emulsion, so add a little of it with the yolks at the start rather than all at the end.
- Basin and wooden spoonA deep mixing bowl and a whisk do the same job faster. A blender or stick blender works too, but with so little liquid you may need to scale the quantities up so the blades catch.
- EggsThe sauce is never cooked. Use very fresh eggs, or pasteurised yolks if serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised, and keep it refrigerated; use within two days.
- Yield and servingRoughly three-quarters of a cup to a cup — enough for four as an accompaniment. It is the classic cold sauce for fried or grilled fish, cold chicken and shellfish.
Cold sauces built on yolks and oil were a fixture of late-Victorian "high class" cookery, where a cook was expected to produce mayonnaise, tartare and r u00e9moulade by hand and by feel. This version, with mustard, two vinegars and chopped gherkins or capers, is close to what such a kitchen would have sent out as sauce tartare ame is to the French habit of labelling sharply seasoned dishes " agragon vinegar was reportedly a fairly common store-cupboard item, kept for exactly this sort of dressing.