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Italian Dressing
Mix together one teaspoonful of tomato catsup, a half teaspoonful of paprika, half a teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of dry mustard, four tablespoonfuls of Pompeian Olive Oil, one tablespoonful of vinegar or lemon juice, a half teaspoonful of onion juice.
Another way to mix the ingredients is to put them in a cruet (half filled) and shake until they mix.
The delicious goodness of French and Italian cooking is largely due to the liberal use of olive oil.
A straightforward shaken vinaigrette, unusual only in its 4:1 oil-to-acid ratio and its spoonful of ketchup. Nothing here needs updating for safety; a few of the ingredients need translating.
- Onion juiceNot a bottled product. Grate half a small onion on a fine rasp and press the pulp through a tea strainer, or crush it in a garlic press. Half a teaspoon is a small amount of liquid, so grate more onion than you think you need.
- Tomato catsupPeriod catsup was thinner, sharper and less sweet than the modern supermarket standard. If you use a current ketchup, expect a noticeably sweeter dressing; a spoonful of tomato passata plus a pinch of sugar comes closer to the original intent.
- The ratioFour parts oil to one part acid is richer than the 3:1 usually given as the modern standard. Taste before dressing anything and add vinegar or lemon a few drops at a time if it reads flat.
- CruetA small glass table bottle with a stopper; the recipe's 'half filled' leaves room to shake. Any screw-top jar does the same job.
- PaprikaHere this means plain sweet paprika, used as much for colour as for flavour. Smoked paprika will dominate the dressing and is not what is intended.
- Dry mustardThe pinch is not only decoration; mustard powder helps the oil and vinegar hold together for a while after shaking.
- YieldAbout a third of a cup, enough to dress a salad for four. It will separate on standing, so mix it shortly before serving or shake again at the table.
This comes from a promotional booklet issued by an olive oil company, which explains both the branded ingredient in the middle of the list and the closing sentence about French and Italian cooking. Olive oil was still a specialty import in the American kitchen of the period; publishing free recipe pamphlets was a standard way of teaching cooks what to do with a product they had no tradition of using. The dressing itself is a vinaigrette with a spoonful of ketchup, a very American touch of the period, when bottled catsup was a common pantry item and turned up in soups, sauces and salad dressings alike. Calling it "Italian" reflects the book's framing rather than any dish from Italy, where dressing a salad meant oil, vinegar and salt applied directly to the leaves.