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Colored Mayonnaise
To color Mayonnaise green add one tablespoon of ravigote herbs to the finished dressing; or chop parsley leaves very fine; pound them in a small quantity of lemon juice; strain and add the juice to the dressing.
To color Mayonnaise red rub one scant tablespoon of lobster coral through a fine sieve and add it to the dressing.
Two garnishing variations on a finished mayonnaise, written for cooks who assembled cold buffet platters by hand. Both work, but the ingredients need translating.
- Quantity assumedThe original gives no volume of mayonnaise. A tablespoon of herb paste or coral suits roughly a cup of finished dressing; add more cautiously, since extra liquid can slacken the emulsion.
- Ravigote herbsNot a single plant but the classic French mixture: chervil, chives, tarragon and parsley, sometimes with a little burnet or watercress. Chopped very fine, or pounded to a paste, then added at the end so the colour stays bright.
- The parsley methodPounding parsley with lemon juice and straining extracts the green pigment without the fibre, which would leave flecks rather than an even tint. A mortar or a small blender does it; press the pulp firmly in a fine sieve to get all the juice.
- Lobster coralThe roe of a hen lobster, black-green when raw and coral-red only after cooking. Use coral from a lobster that has been boiled; raw roe will tint the dressing a dull grey-green and carries the same handling concerns as any raw shellfish.
- Sourcing coral nowSupermarket lobster is usually sold cooked and picked, and coral rarely comes with it. If you buy whole hen lobsters, reserve the coral; otherwise tomato paste, sweet paprika bloomed in a little of the oil, or a spoonful of beet juice will give the colour, though not the flavour.
- Acid balanceThe parsley-juice method adds liquid to an already acidulated dressing. Taste after colouring and correct with salt rather than more lemon, which will thin it further.
- KeepingThe green in particular dulls as it sits, especially at room temperature. Make it the day it is served and keep it refrigerated.
- If you make the base yourselfA homemade mayonnaise is uncooked egg yolk. Pasteurized eggs are the sensible choice for anyone serving the very young, the elderly or the immune-compromised.
Coloured mayonnaises belong to the era of the cold buffet, when a salmon in aspic or a platter of chaud-froid cutlets was expected to arrive at the table in two or three tints, piped and masked rather than merely dressed. Ravigote takes its name from the French ravigoter, to revive or invigorate, and by the nineteenth century it described both a vinaigrette and a green herb mixture used to lift cold sauces; the same herbs turn up in sauce verte, which is close to this recipe with the addition of blanched greens. Lobster coral was a common red in professional kitchens before bottled colouring was trusted, and it appears in garde-manger work as both a tint and an enrichment. That a domestic cookbook carries the technique at all suggests how far restaurant garnishing had travelled into the home kitchen, when a hostess was expected to send out a salad that looked composed rather than merely tossed.