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French Dressing No. 3
1 tablespoon lemon juice 3 tablespoons olive oil 1/4 teaspoon salt A few drops onion juice Dissolve the salt in the lemon juice, add the onion and then the oil. If desired, the oil or lemon juice may be increased.
A minimal vinaigrette at the classic three-to-one ratio, with onion juice standing in for garlic or mustard. It comes together in under a minute and needs only a jar.
- YieldAbout 1/4 cup, enough to dress a salad for two to three. Multiply freely; the proportions hold.
- Dissolve the salt firstThis is the hinge of the method. Salt dissolves in the lemon juice but not in oil, so adding it last leaves gritty crystals that settle out.
- Onion juiceGrate half a small onion on a fine rasp and press the pulp through a sieve, or grate directly and squeeze in your fist. A few drops means a few drops -- it should read as background savour, not onion.
- No emulsifierWith no mustard or egg yolk, this dressing separates quickly. Whisk or shake it again just before it goes on the leaves.
- Olive oil then and nowOlive oil -- A grassy, peppery modern extra-virgin will dominate this dressing; a milder oil keeps the balance the recipe intends.
- Adjusting the ratioThe note that oil or lemon may be increased is worth taking up. Three to one suits tender lettuces; bitter chicories and bean or potato salads take more acid, closer to two to one.
- KeepingMade with fresh onion juice it should be used the same day. The oil-and-lemon base alone keeps a few days refrigerated, though the oil will cloud and solidify and needs to come back to room temperature.
"French dressing" in American cookbooks of this era meant oil, an acid, salt, and often pepper, shaken together, and a single book might carry several numbered variations (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3) differing mainly in the acid and the seasoning. The bright orange, sweetened, tomato-based bottled product that later took the name in the United States is a twentieth-century commercial descendant that has almost nothing to do with it. Onion juice, extracted by grating and pressing, was a familiar device of the period for getting allium flavour without visible pieces.