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Remoulade Dressing
This dressing must be carefully made. Much depends on the mixing, which, if hurriedly or carelessly done, will cause mixture to curdle. Put 3 hard cooked egg yolks into bowl, mash them smooth, and add to them 1/2 teaspoon mustard ... 1 tablespoon vinegar ... and salt and cayenne to suit taste. Next add, drop by drop, 3 tablespoons olive oil. Then add yolk of 1 raw egg, stirring the mixture until light. Finish off with juice of 1/2 lemon added very slowly.
A cooked-yolk emulsion rather than a mayonnaise, and much more forgiving than one — provided the oil goes in slowly. The quantities are small, so measure carefully.
- The hinge: add the oil drop by dropThree tablespoons of oil is little enough that it can be beaten in almost as fast as you like once the emulsion takes, but the first tablespoon must go in a drop at a time. Rushing it is exactly the "hurried or careless" mixing the headnote warns about, and the sauce will break.
- Mash the cooked yolks properlyPush the hard-cooked yolks through a fine sieve rather than mashing with a fork. Any lump left in the base will keep the dressing grainy no matter how long you stir, and the cooked yolk is what carries the emulsion.
- Raw yolkThe single raw yolk is never heated. If you are serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young, or immune-compromised, use a pasteurized egg or pasteurized yolk product. Keep the finished dressing refrigerated and use it within two days.
- MustardThe half teaspoon is most likely dry mustard powder rather than prepared. Prepared Dijon works but is milder and already contains vinegar, so hold back a little of the tablespoon of vinegar if you substitute.
- Cayenne"To suit taste" in a dressing this size means a scant pinch — an eighth of a teaspoon is already assertive. Add it to the yolk base, where it disperses, rather than at the end.
- VinegarCider or white wine vinegar suits it. Distilled white vinegar is harsher and will flatten the lemon at the finish.
- Yield and useThis makes roughly a scant half cup — enough to dress a salad for four, or to sauce cold shrimp, crab or cold boiled beef. It is thick; loosen with a teaspoon of cold water if you want it pourable.
- If it curdlesStart a fresh cooked yolk in a clean bowl and beat the broken mixture into it a few drops at a time. Nothing is lost but the time.