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Cooked Dressing. No. 2
One-fourth of a cupful of butter, one-half teaspoonful of mustard, one saltspoonful of paprika, yolks of two eggs, one-fourth of a cupful of vinegar, one-half of cream.
Cream the butter, add the seasoning, the beaten yolks of the eggs, and the vinegar, which must be hot, then cook over boiling water until very thick, stirring often. Whip the cream, and add it to the cold dressing just before serving.
A boiled salad dressing of the late-Victorian type: egg yolks thickened over water, sharpened with vinegar, and lightened with whipped cream at the last moment. The measurements are mostly clear, with one exception worth flagging.
- The ambiguous measure"One-half of cream" is almost certainly half a cupful, matching the pattern of the other quantities, but the original omits the unit. Half a cup of heavy cream whips to roughly a cup and gives a dressing the consistency of thin mayonnaise.
- A saltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Note also that the recipe calls for no salt at all — taste and correct before the cream goes in, since salt will not dissolve readily once the mixture is cold and aerated.
- Mustard means dry mustardMustard probably means dry mustard -- in American cookbooks of this period, unqualified "mustard" in a dressing usually means powdered mustard rather than the prepared jarred kind. The liquid and heat take the raw edge off it.
- Cook over boiling water, not on the burnerThis is the hinge. Yolks set into a curd well below the boil; direct heat scrambles them in seconds. Use a bowl over simmering water and stir more or less continuously, not just "often."
- Why the vinegar is hotHeating the vinegar helps the mixture start thickening sooner and more evenly. Add it gradually while stirring rather than all at once.
- How thick is "very thick"Take it to the point where the dressing coats a spoon heavily and holds a track when you draw a finger through it. It will thicken further as it cools.
- Cool it completelyThe instruction says to add the whipped cream to the cold dressing. Fold warm dressing into whipped cream and the cream deflates into a soup. Chill the base fully, then fold.
- Yield and keepingAbout a cup and a half, enough for a large bowl of chicken, potato or fruit salad for six. The cream-lightened version will not hold; dress the salad within an hour or so. The base alone keeps three or four days refrigerated.
Cooked or "boiled" dressings were the American answer to mayonnaise in the decades before mechanical beaters and reliable commercial oils made emulsified dressings easy at home. Thickened with egg yolk and sometimes flour, stretched with milk or cream, and sharpened with vinegar and dry mustard, they were cheaper than an oil dressing. Cookbook writers generally gave several dressings in numbered sequence so the cook could match richness to the salad at hand. The whipped cream folded in at the end marks this as one of the richer options.