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French Dressing
INGREDIENTS. ½ a teaspooonful of salt.
A few grains of cayenne or paprica.
If desired, - ¼ a teaspoonful of pepper. 2 to 6 tablespoonfuls of vinegar or lemon juice. 6 tablespoonfuls of oil. ½ a teaspoonful of prepared mustard. 1/2 a teaspoonful of onion juice, or rub the salad-bowl with slice of onion, or clove of garlic.
Method.-Mix the condiments, add the oil and mix again; then add the acid, a few drops at a time, and beat until an emulsion is formed; then pour over the vegetables, toss with the spoon and fork, and serve. In Chicago a method has obtained that is well worth a trial: Put a bit of ice into the bowl with the condiments, and, by means of a fork pressed against or into this, use in mixing. Second Method. - Pour the oil over the vegetables, toss, until the oil is evenly distributed, and dust with salt and pepper; then add the acid and toss again. When the salad is prepared at the table, the vegetables may be dressed in a bowl, then arranged on the serving-dish; or, if but one vegetable is used, it is preferable to serve from the dish in which it is dressed.
A working template rather than a fixed formula: the ratio of oil to acid is left to the cook, and the mixing order is what makes it hold together.
- Add the acid last, drop by dropThe emulsion depends on it. Condiments first, then the oil, then the vinegar or lemon juice a few drops at a time while beating. Dumping the acid in at once gives a thin dressing that separates before it reaches the table.
- RatioSix tablespoons of oil to two of acid is a rich 3:1 dressing; six to six is aggressively sharp by modern taste. Start at 3:1 and open it up from there depending on how mild the vinegar is.
- The ice trickThe "Chicago method" works: cold thickens oil and makes a temporary emulsion form more readily. A cube pressed with a fork against the side of the bowl does the job, and the melt supplies a little water, which also helps. Fish out any remaining ice before dressing the greens.
- Onion juiceMade by grating a peeled onion on a fine grater and using the liquid that collects. Half a teaspoon is enough. The recipe offers rubbing the bowl with a slice of onion or a cut clove of garlic as a gentler alternative.
- Prepared mustardA mild table mustard of the period, closest to a smooth yellow mustard today. Dijon works and helps the emulsion, though it is sharper than the original intends.
- OilLate-Victorian and Edwardian American cooking often meant a bland cottonseed or so-called salad oil, not olive. Use a neutral oil for something close to the book's flavour, olive oil for a better dressing.
- Second methodOiling the vegetables first, then salting, then adding the acid, is still sound practice for delicate greens: the oil coats the leaves and slows the wilting the acid and salt would otherwise cause.
- YieldBetween about half a cup and three-quarters of a cup, depending on how much acid is used. Dress immediately before serving.
French dressing in this period meant exactly what the name says here: oil, acid, salt and pepper, beaten together and poured over vegetables at the last moment. The thick, sweetened, tomato-tinted orange bottled product that later took the name in the United States is a twentieth-century development and has nothing to do with this. The aside about "a method that has obtained" in Chicago suggests the writer had met the trick locally rather than in print.