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Colored Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise may be colored green in the following manner: Boil two cups of spinach until tender, drain it, let it cool and squeeze dry. Mash it thoroughly by pounding, adding one spoonful of the mayonnaise, pass the whole through a fine sieve and mix with the dressing. A lighter shade may be obtained by boiling and mashing green peas and using them in the same way. To produce a red tint for a lobster or fish salad, pound the coral of a lobster, pass it through a fine sieve, and add it to the dressing.
Three tinting purées for mayonnaise, in the French manner. The whole thing hinges on moisture: any water carried in with the spinach or peas will thin the mayonnaise and can break the emulsion, so squeezing and sieving are not optional refinements.
- Squeeze it bone dryWring the cooked spinach in a clean towel until no more liquid comes out, then work it to a paste. A wet purée will slacken the mayonnaise and may split it; if that happens, whisk the loose sauce slowly into a fresh yolk.
- "Two cups of spinach"Read this as two cups of leaves before cooking, which collapses to a few tablespoons of purée once drained. That is about right for tinting a cup of mayonnaise; add it a spoonful at a time and stop at the color you want.
- "One spoonful"The book does not specify size. A tablespoon of the finished mayonnaise is the sensible reading here, since its only job is to loosen the purée enough to push through the sieve.
- Sieve or blenderA fine sieve gives the smoothest result and is still the best tool for small amounts. A small food processor or immersion blender will do the pounding, but pass the purée through a sieve afterward anyway to catch stalk fibers.
- PeasBoil until fully tender rather than crisp, then drain hard and cool before mashing. Frozen peas work here.
- Lobster coralCoral is the roe, found only in hen lobsters, and it is black-green when raw and scarlet only after cooking. Use coral from a lobster that has been fully cooked; raw roe will not give the color and should not go into a cold sauce.
- Raw-egg mayonnaiseIf you are making the mayonnaise from scratch rather than using a commercial jar, use pasteurized eggs, keep the sauce refrigerated, and use it within two days.
- Where to use themThe green shades suit cold salmon, poached chicken, egg salad and cucumber; the coral version belongs with lobster, crab and cold white fish. Tint only as much mayonnaise as you will use at that meal, since the color dulls in the refrigerator.