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French Dressing
2/424 Teaspoon Salt Teaspoon Pepper Tablespoons Vinegar 4 Tablespoons Salad Oil French dressing is chiefly used for uncooked vegetables and for marinating cooked salad materials.
Mix ingredients and stir until well blended.
A plain vinaigrette in the standard early-twentieth-century proportion. The quantities in this printing have been mangled in transcription, so read them with care before measuring.
- The garbled measurementsThe string "2/424" is a collapsed fraction column; the recipe probably read something like 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 2 tablespoons vinegar, 4 tablespoons salad oil, which gives a two-to-one oil-to-vinegar ratio. The salt and pepper figures are a reasonable reconstruction rather than a certainty.
- Salad oilIn American cookbooks of this period "salad oil" meant olive oil, or increasingly cottonseed oil sold under that name. Any neutral oil or a mild olive oil works; a strong modern extra-virgin will dominate.
- Vinegar strengthHousehold vinegar then was commonly cider or white wine vinegar around 4 to 5 percent acidity, much like today's. Distilled white vinegar is harsher than what was intended; lemon juice can stand in for part of it.
- Blending"Stir until well blended" produces a temporary emulsion that separates within minutes. Shaking in a sealed jar holds it together longer, and a quarter teaspoon of mustard will keep it emulsified through the meal.
- Season the vinegar firstSalt dissolves in vinegar, not in oil. Whisk the salt and pepper into the vinegar before adding the oil or you will get gritty pockets of salt on the leaves.
- MarinatingThe note about marinating cooked salad materials is the useful part: potatoes, beets and green beans absorb dressing best while still warm. Dress them well before assembling the salad, then dress the greens at the last moment.
- YieldAbout 6 tablespoons, enough for a salad for four. It scales directly and keeps a week refrigerated, though it will need shaking and a few minutes at room temperature.
French dressing in American cookbooks before the Second World War generally meant something close to this: oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, stirred, though period recipes often added paprika, mustard, sugar, onion juice or garlic. The name marked it as the French manner of dressing salad, in contrast to the boiled or cooked dressings thickened with egg and flour that were also familiar in Anglo-American kitchens, and to the mayonnaise that outranked both in formality. The sweetened, tomato-tinted orange bottled product that now claims the name in the United States is a later commercial development.