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French Dressing
3 tablespoons oil 3/4 to 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon-juice 3/4 teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon salt These ingredients make a simple French dressing. Many salad-lovers add one or more other ingredients to give a particular tang or flavor. The French always rub the bowl in which the salad-dressing is made with a clove of garlic. Tarragon, or estragon, vinegar may be used instead of plain vinegar, or some leaves of tarragon or estragon, procurable at the large markets, may be cut in bits and sprinkled over the salad.
If the French dressing is made at table, a small china or glass tray, set with oil and vinegar cruets, salt-cellar, peppercorn-grinder, paprika-shaker, bottle of Worcestershire sauce, and a bottle of pearl onions, is passed to the person who serves the salad. Small silver stands for holding these ingredients are now found in the shops.
Mix the oil, salt and pepper together and slowly add the vinegar, stirring constantly. In dressing a salad at the table, the dressing may be made in a separate bowl and then poured upon the vegetables, the latter being tossed lightly for a few seconds and then served, or it may be done in the following graceful way: Hold a salad-spoon (or a tablespoon) over the salad, put into it the salt and the pepper, and then fill with the oil the remaining space, mix with a fork, and then pour upon the vegetables, distributing well; add the remaining proportion of oil, a spoonful at a time, tossing the salad lightly; at the last add the vinegar, toss again and serve. Or all ingredients may be placed in a cruet and shaken vigorously, then poured over the salad. If the French dressing is made before the meal, the addition of a small amount of egg-white beaten with the dressing will make the emulsion more permanent.
A basic vinaigrette in its 1920s proportions, with a good deal of period table theater attached. The working ratio is the only thing you need to hold onto: three parts oil to roughly one part acid.
- Salt and pepper, tasted not measuredA teaspoon of salt and three-quarters of a teaspoon of pepper against three tablespoons of oil is far more seasoning than a modern palate expects, and the pepper in particular will dominate. Start with about a quarter teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper, then adjust.
- YieldRoughly a scant quarter cup, which lightly dresses a salad for three or four. Double or triple it freely; the ratio holds.
- The oil meant hereIn 1920s American kitchens "oil" in a salad dressing meant olive oil or a bland cottonseed or corn oil. Extra-virgin olive oil is fine but assertive; a milder oil gives something closer to the original.
- Order of mixing mattersDissolving the salt in the oil first, as directed, is the wrong way round if you want it to disperse. Salt dissolves in the vinegar or lemon juice, not in fat, so whisk it into the acid and add the oil in a slow stream.
- Tarragon vinegarOnce a staple, still sold but less common. Steep a few bruised tarragon sprigs in white wine vinegar for a week if you cannot find it. "Estragon" is simply the French name for the same herb.
- The garlic-rubbed bowlCut a clove and rub the inside of a wooden or ceramic bowl before the greens go in. It gives a faint perfume rather than garlic flavor, and it is worth doing.
- Pearl onions and WorcestershireBoth belong to the period taste for a table cruet set. A teaspoon of Worcestershire adds salt and anchovy depth; skip it if you want a clean vinaigrette.
- The egg-white emulsifierRaw egg white will hold the emulsion for a day or two but carries the usual raw-egg caveat. A quarter teaspoon of Dijon mustard does the same job and keeps better.
The New Delineator Recipes came out of the Butterick magazine The Delineator, and this entry shows a household magazine teaching not just a dressing but a performance. Dressing the salad at the table is presented here as a mark of continental refinement, hence the fitted cruet trays and the "graceful way" of building the dressing in a spoon held over the bowl; the closing line about silver stands "now found in the shops" is a reminder that a magazine recipe was often also an argument for buying something. The formula itself is unremarkable and very old: oil, acid, salt, pepper, in the proportion often summarized as being generous with the oil and sparing with the vinegar. The garlic-rubbed bowl and the tarragon are the touches the book itself marks as French.