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Cream Salad Dressing
Yolks of three hard boiled eggs 1 tablespoonful of melted butter Yolk of one raw egg 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar 1 gill of thick cream 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 1/4 teaspoonful of black pepper Mash the hard boiled yolks until fine, then add the raw yolk and work with an elastic bladed knife to a perfectly smooth paste; then add the salt, pepper and melted butter, then by degrees the cream, working and stirring all the while, now add the vinegar, mix well, and it is finished.
A cooked-yolk dressing of the pre-blender era, closer to a French sauce gribiche than to modern mayonnaise. It comes together in a bowl with a knife in about five minutes.
- A gillFour fluid ounces, half a cup, in American measure; a British imperial gill is five. "Thick cream" means heavy cream, ideally not ultra-pasteurized, which behaves better here.
- The hingeThe hard-boiled yolks must be worked absolutely smooth. The recipe mashes them fine, adds the raw yolk, and works the two to a paste before the butter and cream go in; lumps are much harder to break down once the cream is in. Press the yolks through a fine sieve first if the knife is not getting there.
- Elastic bladed knifeA thin flexible palette knife or offset spatula. A silicone spatula does the same job.
- Add the cream slowlyThis is an emulsion, not a stirred mixture. Dribbling the cream in and working continuously keeps it thick; dumping it in gives a thin, grainy sauce.
- Vinegar last, for a reasonAcid added early will thin and curdle the cream. Cider or white wine vinegar suits it; a plain distilled vinegar tastes harsh at this proportion.
- The raw yolkIt is never cooked. Use a pasteurized egg if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised.
- Yield and keepingClose to a cup, enough for a salad for four to six. Refrigerate and use within a day; it stiffens when cold and wants a brief stir before serving.
- Where it belongsSuits cold food — lettuce, cold chicken, cold salmon, boiled potatoes, sliced tomatoes. It is too rich for delicate leaves alone.
Late nineteenth-century American cookbooks generally treated the boiled dressing, the plain oil-and-vinegar French dressing, and cream dressings of this hard-boiled-yolk type as separate categories. A cooked-yolk-and-cream dressing gave something of the body of mayonnaise without beating oil into a raw yolk by hand, a real consideration before electric mixers.