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Salad Dressing Without Oil
½ pint of milk Yolks of three eggs Butter the size of a walnut 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar 1 teaspoonful of salt Put the milk on to boil. 2 even tablespoonfuls of cornstarch 1 saltspoonful of black pepper Moisten the corn starch with a very little cold milk, add to the boiling milk, and stir continually until it boils and thickens; then add the yolks of the eggs well beaten, cook one minute, take from the fire, add the salt, pepper, butter and vinegar, stand away until cold, and it is ready to use.
A cooked dressing thickened with cornstarch and egg yolk rather than emulsified with oil — closer to a savoury custard than to mayonnaise. It keeps its shape on lettuce, cabbage or cold potatoes and is far more forgiving than a true mayonnaise.
- MeasurementsHalf a pint is 1 cup of milk. A saltspoonful is a quarter teaspoon. Butter "the size of a walnut" is about 1 tablespoon.
- Add the vinegar off the heatThis is the hinge. The 2 tablespoons of vinegar go in only after the pan leaves the stove, once the starch has fully set the milk. Acid added to hot milk earlier will curdle it and will also thin cornstarch's thickening power.
- Temper the yolksThe recipe says only to add the well-beaten yolks, but it is safer to whisk a ladle of the hot thickened milk into them first and then return the mixture to the pan. Dropping cold yolks straight into a boiling starch base can give you scrambled flecks.
- That one minute mattersCook the yolks the full minute the recipe calls for, stirring, and no longer. The starch gives them some protection from curdling, but sustained boiling after the eggs go in can break the sauce and turn it grainy.
- It thickens as it coolsWarm, it looks too thin. Cold, it sets to a spoonable, pudding-like consistency. Thin it with a little milk or cream when you dress the salad if it has gone stiffer than you want.
- Yield and keepingAbout 1¼ cups, enough for a large bowl of slaw or four or five individual salads. Cover and refrigerate; being a milk-and-egg base, use it within three or four days.
- Vinegar choiceThe recipe specifies only "vinegar"; cider or white wine vinegar both suit it. Two tablespoons in a cup of milk is a mild tang — taste when cold and add more if it reads flat, since chilling dulls the perception of acidity.
Cooked or "boiled" dressings like this one filled the space that bottled mayonnaise later took over in American kitchens. Good olive oil was expensive in the late nineteenth century and often stale or adulterated by the time it reached inland households; a starch-and-yolk dressing made from milk, butter and vinegar used only what was already in the pantry, and it was steadier in warm weather than a hand-beaten oil emulsion. Commercial jarred mayonnaise arrived in the United States in the early twentieth century and gradually pushed boiled dressing to the margins, where it survives mainly in old-fashioned coleslaw and potato salad.