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Curry Dressing
¾ teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper ¼ teaspoon curry powder 5 tablespoons olive oil 3 tablespoons vinegar Mix ingredients in order given and stir until well blended.
Cream Dressing I ¼ tablespoon salt ½ tablespoon mustard ¾ tablespoon sugar 1 egg slightly beaten 2½ tablespoons melted butter 3/4 cup cream 1/4 cup vinegar Mix ingredients in order given, adding vinegar very slowly. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until mixture thickens, strain and cool.
Two salad dressings run together here: a simple curry vinaigrette and a cooked cream dressing of the boiled-dressing family. Both are straightforward, but several of the printed fractions have been mangled and need reading with judgement.
- Read the fractions with careSeveral quantities have lost their fraction bars in printing: "34 teaspoon" is three-quarters of a teaspoon, "14 teaspoon" is a quarter, and "21½ tablespoons" of butter is two and a half. Where a figure looks implausible, scale it against the oil and vinegar, which are legible.
- The curry vinaigrette proportionsFive tablespoons oil to three of vinegar is a sharper ratio than the modern three-to-one, which suits potatoes and other starchy salads that absorb dressing. Whisk or shake it hard; without an emulsifier it will separate within minutes and needs shaking again at the table.
- Bloom the curry powderCommercial curry powder of this period was often turmeric-heavy, and stirring it raw into oil can leave it gritty and dusty-tasting. Warming the powder briefly in a little of the oil before combining disperses it and rounds the flavour.
- Cream dressing is a cooked custardThe egg, cream and vinegar go into a double boiler over simmering water, not over direct heat. Direct heat curdles it almost at once; the water bath is what keeps the egg below the point where it scrambles.
- Add the vinegar slowly, and lastThis is the hinge of the second recipe. Acid poured into egg and cream all at once will curdle the mixture before it ever reaches the stove; trickle it in while whisking. Straining after cooking is insurance, not a substitute.
- How thick is thickCook until the dressing coats the back of a spoon and holds a line drawn with a finger, around 170–175F. It thickens further as it chills, so pull it slightly looser than you want it.
- Cream then and nowCream in this period was unhomogenised, and what a cookbook called simply "cream" was usually thinner than modern heavy cream. Half-and-half or light cream gives a closer result; heavy cream makes the dressing very rich.
- Yield and keepingThe curry dressing makes about half a cup. The cream dressing makes something over a cup; refrigerate it and use within three or four days.
Boiled or cooked dressings like the second recipe here were a common American household alternative to mayonnaise: thickening with a whole egg over hot water gave a more stable, keepable sauce than a hand-beaten raw-egg mayonnaise. They were widely used for potato salad, coleslaw and chicken salad in nineteenth-century American kitchens, and their descendants survive in the sweet-tart bottled salad dressings still sold today. The curry vinaigrette reflects a different current — curry powder had been sold as a British grocery item since the late eighteenth century and reached American cookbooks as a ready-made blend, generally used as a warming seasoning for eggs, soups and dressings rather than for Indian cookery as such.