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Mayonnaise Dressing
3 egg yolks 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon mustard 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/4 teaspoon powdered sugar 2 cups olive oil 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 tablespoon vinegar Mix dry ingredients, add egg yolks, when well mixed add one-half teaspoon vinegar; beat with rotary beater until smooth, then add, drop by drop, two cups oil, beating constantly. As mixture thickens, thin with lemon juice, or vinegar; add more oil, alternating with vinegar and lemon until proportions are used, stirring or beating constantly. If oil is added too rapidly dressing will curdle. In this case take a fresh, cold yolk, beat until thick and add curdled mixture slowly to it. The oil for salad dressing should be thoroughly chilled and in making, all utensils and ingredients should be cold. It is helpful to place bowl in a larger dish of cracked ice. Mayonnaise should be stiff enough to hold its shape. Size of eggs and sharpness of vinegar are so variable that sauce made with two cups of oil may vary at different times. Cream Mayonnaise: To 1/2 cup Mayonnaise add 1/4 cup stiffly beaten cream. Sweet Cream Mayonnaise: To 1 cup Mayonnaise add 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1/3 cup sweet cream beaten stiff. Fluffy Pecan Mayonnaise: To 1 cup Mayonnaise add 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, beating well. Then add 1 tablespoon of boiling water and chill; fold in 1 stiffly beaten egg white and 1 tablespoon grated pecan meats.
Green Mayonnaise: Add 3 tablespoons ravigote herbs to 1 Mayonnaise recipe; or chop parsley and pound it with a small quantity of lemon juice, strain through cheesecloth and add to 1 Mayonnaise recipe.
Red Mayonnaise: Add 1 tablespoon lobster coral to 1 Mayonnaise recipe, after rubbing coral through a fine sieve.
Russian Cheese Dressing: To 4 tablespoons Mayonnaise add 2 tablespoons chili sauce, 1 chopped hard cooked egg, and 2 tablespoons pimiento cheese.
A classic hand-built mayonnaise with a page of variations. The instructions are sound; what needs translating is the equipment, the oil, and one or two ingredients that have left the ordinary market.
- The hinge: oil speedEverything depends on adding the first portion of oil drop by drop while beating without pause. The emulsion is fragile until roughly a third of the oil is in; after that you can move to a thin steady stream.
- Cold is not optional hereCold is what the book insists on — chilled oil, chilled utensils, chilled bowl. The bowl set in cracked ice works exactly as described; a bowl chilled in the freezer for ten minutes does the same job.
- Rotary beater, or a machineA hand rotary beater or a whisk gives the best control. A food processor or immersion blender will also do it, but the blades shear the droplets much finer and the sauce sets very stiff, so add the lemon juice earlier to keep it spoonable.
- Two cups of olive oilModern extra-virgin olive oil can turn bitter and metallic when beaten hard. Use a mild refined olive oil, or half olive and half neutral oil, if you want the flavor the book intended.
- Raw yolksNothing in this sauce is cooked. Use pasteurized eggs if serving children, the elderly, or anyone pregnant or immune-compromised, keep the finished mayonnaise refrigerated, and use it within three or four days.
- The rescue worksThe instruction to beat a fresh cold yolk and add the broken mixture to it slowly is the standard fix and is still the fastest. A tablespoon of warm water, or a teaspoon of prepared mustard, beaten in the same way, will also recover a split batch.
- Ravigote herbsRavigote herb mixtures vary; they typically draw on chervil, chives, tarragon and parsley, chopped fine. Blanching the herbs for a few seconds and squeezing them dry gives a greener color than the raw parsley-and-cheesecloth method described.
- Lobster coralThe coral is the dark green roe of a hen lobster, which turns coral-red on cooking; it is rarely sold separately now and comes only from whole lobsters. Sieved cooked roe is the only thing that gives the exact flavor, though a spoonful of tomato paste with paprika gives the color alone.
- YieldThe base recipe makes roughly two and a half cups, enough for a large party salad. Half quantities work fine, but keep the yolk-to-oil ratio rather than halving the oil alone.