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Mayonnaise Dressing
Put the uncooked yolks of two eggs into a clean, cold soupdish, stand on the ice for fifteen minutes. Place the oil also on the ice. When both are perfectly cold, add to the yolks a half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of cayenne, and if you like a half teaspoonful of mustard. Work these well together, and then add, drop by drop, a half pint or more of good olive oil. You must stir rapidly and steadily while adding the oil. Do not reverse the motion or it may curdle. After adding one gill of oil, alternate occasionally with a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar. The more oil you use the thicker the dressing. If it becomes too thick, add about a half teaspoonful of vinegar. More or less oil may be added, according to the quantity of dressing (23) wanted. With care a quart bottle of oil may be stirred into the yolks of two eggs, alternating with a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar, after adding the first gill of oil. In case the dressing should curdle, i. e., the oil and egg separate, which makes the dressing oily and liquid, begin anew at once with the yolks of two eggs on another plate, and after stirring them well, add by teaspoonfuls the curdled mayonnaise, stirring rapidly and steadily as before, and then finish by adding more oil as directed.
This dressing, if covered tightly in a jar or tumbler, will keep in a cold place three or four days.
It may be varied and improved by adding plain or tarragon vinegar, whipped cream, a half teaspoonful of powdered coriander seed, cervil, or onion juice.
A classic hand-whisked mayonnaise, written when every drop of oil went in by hand and the ice-box did the work of a refrigerator. The measurements need translating and the storage advice does not survive contact with modern food safety.
- The hinge: cold and slowThe emulsion forms or fails in the first tablespoon of oil. The recipe insists on chilling both yolks and oil; whatever the temperature, the oil must go in drop by drop until the mixture visibly thickens and turns pale. Only then can you pour in a thin steady stream.
- UnitsA gill is a half cup. A half pint of oil is one cup. The "soupdish" is simply a wide shallow bowl, which gives a whisk room to work; a medium mixing bowl does the same job.
- The quart of oilTwo yolks carry far more oil than most cooks expect, but a full quart into two yolks is a demonstration of skill rather than a useful ratio. One cup to one and a half cups of oil per two yolks gives a thick, spoonable dressing that will not taste overwhelmingly of oil.
- Raw yolksNothing here is cooked. Use pasteurized eggs in the shell or pasteurized liquid yolk if the dressing will be served to children, older eaters, pregnant women or anyone immune-compromised.
- StorageIgnore "three or four days in a cold place." Refrigerate at once in a covered jar and treat it as a one- to two-day dressing; the acid content of a homemade mayonnaise is unpredictable and offers little protection.
- Rescuing a split batchThe method given works and is still the standard fix, though you need not sacrifice two more yolks. A teaspoon of water, or one fresh yolk, in a clean bowl will take the broken mixture back a spoonful at a time.
- The flavourings"Cervil" is chervil. Powdered coriander seed and onion juice both turn up as seasonings for cold sauces in books of this period; both are worth a small trial batch before committing a cup of oil. Tarragon vinegar in place of plain is the most reliable of the variations.
- Olive oilA strongly flavoured modern cold-pressed extra virgin can taste bitter in mayonnaise, especially if machine-blended. A light olive oil, or a blend with a neutral oil, gives a milder result.
- YieldTwo yolks with one cup of oil make roughly a cup and a quarter of dressing, enough for a large salad or a platter of cold chicken or salmon for six.
Mayonnaise is generally traced to the Mediterranean port of Mahón on Menorca, the name often said to have travelled to France with the Duc de Richelieu's forces in the 1750s, though the etymology is disputed and the earliest French printed versions belong to the nineteenth century. Its appearance in a book of hot weather dishes is entirely practical: mayonnaise needs no fire at a season when a coal range made a kitchen unbearable, and it turned cold leftover fish, fowl and boiled vegetables into a dish worth serving. Note how much of the instruction concerns ice — chilled bowl, chilled oil, a cold place for keeping. Before mechanical refrigeration and before jarred commercial mayonnaise reached American groceries in the early twentieth century, a household's ability to make and hold this dressing depended entirely on the block of ice in the box.