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Salad Dressing Without Oil
1/2 pint of milk, 1 ounce of butter, 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, I salt spoon of pepper, Put the milk on to boil.
Yolks of three eggs, 2 even tablespoonfuls of cornstarch, 1 teaspoonful of salt.
Moisten the corn-starch with a little cold milk, add it to the boiling milk, and stir continually until it forms a perfectly smooth, thick paste. Then hastily stir in the yolks well beaten. Cook one minute, take from the fire, add the salt, pepper, butter and vinegar. Stand until icy cold and it is ready to use.
A boiled dressing of the sort that filled the gap before bottled mayonnaise, thickened with starch and egg rather than emulsified with oil. The whole thing takes about ten minutes at the stove and then needs several hours in the cold.
- Half a pint of milkOne cup, in American measure. Whole milk gives the best body; skim will set up but tastes thin against the vinegar.
- A salt spoonA salt spoon holds roughly a quarter teaspoon. The teaspoonful of salt called for separately is a full teaspoon, which is on the assertive side for one cup of milk — add half, then taste at the end.
- Vinegar goes in off the heatThe recipe adds the vinegar only after the pan leaves the fire; acid stirred into hot milk risks curdling, so follow that order. Cider vinegar suits the dressing better than distilled white.
- Moisten the cornstarch firstSlurry the two tablespoons of cornstarch with two or three tablespoons of cold milk taken from the measured cup before it goes on to boil. Dry starch dropped into hot milk lumps instantly and no amount of stirring recovers it.
- Tempering the yolks"Hastily stir in the yolks well beaten" works better if you first whisk a few spoonfuls of the hot starch paste into the yolks, then return the lot to the pan. One minute of cooking after that, over low heat, stirring constantly.
- ButterOne ounce is two tablespoons. Stir it in while the base is still hot enough to melt it, before the vinegar.
- Icy cold means coldThe dressing is loose and unpromising warm and sets to a spoonable, mayonnaise-like thickness only when thoroughly chilled — three hours in the refrigerator, or overnight. Whisk before using; it stiffens further on standing and can be let down with a spoonful of milk or cream.
- Yield and keepingRoughly a cup and a half, enough to dress a large bowl of potato, cabbage or chicken salad for six. Refrigerate and use within a few days.
Boiled dressings like this one were a common American salad sauce through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, and they persisted alongside mayonnaise in many households. Salad oil was expensive, variable in quality and prone to going rancid in a warm pantry, while milk, eggs, butter and vinegar were on hand. The result is tangier and less rich than mayonnaise, which is why it was often paired with cabbage, potatoes and cold poultry — pairings that survive in the sweeter commercial "salad dressing" sold alongside mayonnaise, which grew out of this style.