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English Salad Mixture
718. Beat a raw egg with a salt-spoonful of salt until it is thoroughly smooth, then incorporate with it a tea-spoonful of mustard, made rather thicker than usual. When these are quite smooth, add by degrees one, two, or three table-spoonsful, or even more, of good salad oil, taking care to blend each portion of it with the egg before adding more. This ought to make any quantity, up to a teacupful, of a tenacious mass, so thick that a tea-spoon will stand up in it, and as smooth as honey. Dilute it with vinegar till it assumes the consistence of thick cream. No salad mixture is so smooth and rich as this, and at the same time the original oily flavour is completely lost, from the raw egg converting the oil into an emulsion. A little anchovy may be added if desired.
Another. Boil an egg hard, take the yolk after it is cold, and mix it up smoothly with a litttle cream, vinegar, mustard, and salt. Another. Take the yolk of a hard boiled egg, rub it down with a spoonful of dry mustard, a little salt, and a floury potato well washed and boiled. Then add a spoonful of good oil, another of cream, and, when thoroughly and smoothly incorporated, add about a spoonful of vinegar.
Another. The yolk of a raw egg, two and a half table-spoonsful of salad oil, one flat tea-spoonful of flour of mustard, one flat teaspoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of brown sugar, a little cayenne pepper, one and a half table-spoonful of vinegar. The oil should be gradually and thoroughly mixed with the yolk of egg, then add the mustard, salt, sugar, and pepper, adding the vinegar last; it may be thinned by adding a very little milk. Or, In the absence of an egg, the oil may be mixed with the mustard and salt only; but it takes a great deal of time to incorporate them properly. 719. For French salad mixture, see (716).
Five dressings under one heading: a true hand-made mayonnaise, then three cooked-yolk variants that stretch a single egg, and a last resort with no egg at all. The first is the one worth learning.
- The hinge: oil by drops, not spoonfulsWhere the text says "add by degrees one, two, or three table-spoonsful", read that as a few drops at a time until the emulsion has visibly thickened and taken hold, then a thin trickle. Adding a whole tablespoon at the start will break it.
- Small measuresA salt-spoonful is about a quarter teaspoon. A teacupful was commonly reckoned at around 6 fl oz, though the book does not define it; the text gives a teacupful as the most one egg is expected to carry, not a fixed yield.
- "Flour of mustard"Dry mustard powder, not a paste. English mustard powder is what is meant; it is hotter than most yellow powders sold in the United States, so taste before adding the full flat teaspoon.
- Mustard "made rather thicker than usual"Mustard powder slaked with a little cold water to a stiff paste, left five to ten minutes to develop heat. The mustard is doing real work here as a second emulsifier alongside the yolk.
- Salad oilIn 1859 this meant olive oil, probably milder and less fresh than what is sold today. A modern extra-virgin oil can turn bitter under vigorous beating; a light olive oil, or half light olive and half neutral oil, gives the sweetness the recipe assumes.
- Raw eggThe first and fourth mixtures are never cooked. Use pasteurised eggs, and avoid serving them to anyone pregnant, very young, elderly or immune-compromised. Keep the finished dressing refrigerated and use it within a day.
- If it splitsStart a fresh yolk in a clean bowl and beat the broken mixture into it a little at a time. The vinegar goes in only at the end, as the recipe says: acid added early keeps the emulsion loose.
- "A little anchovy"Anchovy essence or a mashed salted anchovy fillet. Half a teaspoon of essence, or one fillet, is enough for a teacupful; add it before the vinegar and cut back the salt.
- The potato versionPress the boiled potato through a sieve while warm so it does not go gluey. It gives a thick, mild dressing.
The British Cookery Book, compiled under J. H. Walsh and published in 1859, collected recipes from many correspondents, which is why one heading here carries five competing answers. The first recipe is a straightforward hand-beaten mayonnaise, praised precisely because "the original oily flavour is completely lost", and the explanation given for that -- the raw egg "converting the oil into an emulsion" -- reaches for the chemistry rather than simply the method. The standard it sets, thick enough that a teaspoon stands up in it and as smooth as honey, is still the right test.