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Cooked Cream Salad Dressing
Take three eggs (yolks); one tablespoon of thick, sweet cream; one tablespoon of butter; one tablespoon of lemon juice; one saltspoon of celery salt; oneeighth saltspoon of pepper; one teaspoon of made mustard; one teaspoon of sugar. Beat the eggs lightly, add the cream, the butter, melted (but not to an oil), and the rest of the ingredients, stirring all the time, and beating well after each addition. Set the bowl containing the dressing in a saucepan of hot water, and stir rapidly until the dressing thickens. Set it on the ice to cool thoroughly before using. Vinegar may be substituted for lemon juice.
A boiled dressing in the older style: egg yolks thickened over hot water, richer and softer than mayonnaise and much less prone to breaking. The whole thing takes about ten minutes.
- The hinge: gentle heatThe bowl must sit in hot, not boiling, water, and the mixture wants constant stirring. Yolks begin to thicken from around 150F and will curdle past roughly 180F, turning the dressing grainy. Pull it off the heat when it coats the spoon and still looks glossy.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So one saltspoon of celery salt is 1/4 teaspoon, and an eighth saltspoon of pepper is a scant pinch.
- Made mustard"Made" mustard means prepared wet mustard, not the dry powder. A plain Dijon or a smooth yellow mustard both work; the powder alone would be harsh and would not carry the same acidity.
- Thick, sweet cream"Sweet" here means unsoured, as opposed to the sour cream common in period kitchens. Use heavy cream. One tablespoon is genuinely all there is, so the dressing is thickened by yolk rather than by fat.
- Butter melted but not to an oilSoften it just to the point of collapse, while it is still cloudy and emulsified. Fully clarified, separated butter will slick out of the dressing rather than blending in.
- Chilling"Set it on the ice" is a refrigerator instruction. It thickens noticeably as it cools, so judge the final consistency cold, not warm; thin it with a little cream if it sets too stiff.
- YieldVery small: roughly a third to a half cup, enough to dress a salad for four.
- KeepingA cooked yolk dressing is not a preserve. Refrigerate and use within two or three days.
Boiled or cooked dressings like this one were a common alternative to mayonnaise in American households before the electric mixer and the commercial jar. Mayonnaise demands a steady arm and cool ingredients, and it is harder to manage in a warm kitchen; a yolk-and-cream dressing set over hot water is more forgiving by comparison, and it uses a tablespoon of cream where mayonnaise wants a cup of oil. That thrift matters in a book of this kind. The Butterick Publishing Company, better known for dress patterns and The Delineator, aimed its cookery at middle-class women managing without much help, and the salad chapter reflects the turn-of-the-century vogue for salads as a distinct course rather than a side of dressed greens. Celery salt, which appears here as the main seasoning, was a fashionable convenience of the era, sold ready-mixed and used freely in dressings and cold sauces.