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French Dressing
3 tablespoons oil
¾ teaspoon pepper
¾ to 1 tablespoon vinegar or 1 teaspoon salt lemon-juice
These ingredients make a simple French dressing. Many saladlovers add one or more other ingredients to give a particular tang or flavor. The French always rub the bowl in which the saladdressing is made with a clove of garlic. Tarragon, or estragon, vinegar may be used instead of plain vinegar, or some leaves of tarragon or estragon, procurable at the large markets, may be cut in bits and sprinkled over the salad.
If the French dressing is made at table, a small china or glass tray, set with oil and vinegar cruets, salt-cellar, peppercorngrinder, paprika-shaker, bottle of Worcestershire sauce, and a bottle of pearl onions, is passed to the person who serves the salad. Small silver stands for holding these ingredients are now found in the shops.
Mix the oil, salt and pepper together and slowly add the vinegar, stirring constantly. In dressing a salad at the table, the dressing may be made in a separate bowl and then poured upon the vegetables, the latter being tossed lightly for a few seconds and then served, or it may be done in the following graceful way: Hold a salad-spoon (or a tablespoon) over the salad, put into it the salt and the pepper, and then fill with the oil the remaining space, mix with a fork, and then pour upon the vegetables, distributing well; add the remaining proportion of oil, a spoonful at a time, tossing the salad lightly; at the last add the vinegar, toss again and serve. Or all ingredients may be placed in a cruet and shaken vigorously, then poured over the salad.
If the French dressing is made before the meal, the addition of a small amount of egg-white beaten with the dressing will make the emulsion more permanent.
The ingredient list has been mangled by the original two-column typesetting; read it as 3 tablespoons oil, ¾ to 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper. What follows is a plain vinaigrette with a long note on table service.
- The ratioThree parts oil to one part acid is the working proportion, and it still holds. Reduce to 2:1 if the salad is heavy on starch or if you are using a mild rice or champagne vinegar.
- That pepper measurementThe ¾ teaspoon printed for pepper may be an artefact of the mangled two-column setting; whatever the intended figure, ¾ teaspoon of ground pepper would swamp three tablespoons of oil, so start with a few grinds.
- Dissolve the salt in the acidThe instruction to mix salt into the oil first is backwards by modern practice. Salt does not dissolve in oil, so it stays gritty; whisk it into the vinegar or lemon juice, then beat in the oil.
- The garlic rubRubbing the bowl with a cut clove is the classic French touch, sometimes done with a garlic-rubbed crust of bread (a chapon) left in the bowl. It gives perfume without the raw bite of minced garlic.
- Tarragon vinegarEstragon is simply the French name for tarragon; the two words in the original are the same herb. Tarragon vinegar is still sold, and fresh tarragon is no longer a large-market rarity.
- The optional egg whiteA little raw egg white does hold the emulsion, but raw egg in an uncooked dressing carries a salmonella risk, particularly for anyone pregnant, elderly or immune-compromised. A teaspoon of mustard, or pasteurised egg white, does the same job.
- The cruet methodShaking everything in a sealed jar is the fastest route and produces a temporary emulsion that will hold through service. It separates within the hour; shake again before pouring.
- YieldRoughly ¼ cup, which dresses a salad for three or four. Scale up freely, but dress at the last moment and use less than you think you need.
"French dressing" in a 1911 American household book means what a French cook would call a vinaigrette or simply sauce for salad: oil, acid, salt, pepper, and nothing else obligatory. The elaborate paragraph on cruet trays and "small silver stands now found in the shops" is the real period marker here — dressing the salad at the table was a piece of dining-room theatre, and Butterick, a pattern company selling aspiration alongside instruction, was as interested in teaching the performance as the proportions. The name later drifted badly in the United States, where by mid-century "French dressing" on a supermarket shelf meant something orange, sweetened and thickened with tomato, a product that would have puzzled the author of this page. The advice to rub the bowl with garlic is still given in French kitchens, and the note that tarragon leaves are "procurable at the large markets" quietly records how narrow the ordinary American herb supply then was.