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Bottled Salad Dressing
Beat yolks of eight eggs, add to them a cup of sugar, one tablespoon each of salt, mustard, and black pepper, a little cayenne, and half a cup of cream; mix thoroughly; bring to a boil a pint and a half vinegar, add one cup butter, let come to a boil, pour upon the mixture, stir well, and when cold put into bottles, and set in a cool place. It will keep for weeks in the hottest weather, and is excellent for cabbage or lettuce.
This is a nineteenth-century boiled dressing of the keep-it-on-the-shelf type, and the two things that made it practical then are exactly what make it unsafe now. The notes below explain the specific failures rather than offering a rewrite.
- The yolks are never cookedEight raw yolks and half a cup of cream are dressed with boiling vinegar and butter and then simply stirred. Nothing returns to the heat and no temperature is checked, so there is no assurance the egg reaches the 160F that inactivates Salmonella. A boiled dressing that is actually cooked is held over heat, or over water, until it thickens; this one is not.
- The hot liquid will not do the job on its ownA pint and a half of vinegar plus a cup of butter poured onto a cold mass of yolks, sugar and cream loses a great deal of heat instantly to the vessel and the cold ingredients. The final temperature depends entirely on how fast it is poured and what bowl is used, which is precisely why this method is not relied on today.
- Weeks of unrefrigerated storageThe claim that it "will keep for weeks in the hottest weather" in a "cool place" describes a cellar or springhouse, not a kitchen counter. An egg-and-dairy emulsion held at ambient summer temperature for weeks is a growth medium, and the acidity here is diluted by sugar, butter and cream to an unknown pH.
- Bottling without a processThe dressing is poured cold into bottles that are not sterilised, sealed or heat-processed. There is no measured acid concentration and no way to verify the finished product is acidic enough to be shelf-stable.
- If you want the flavourThe sweet-sharp mustard dressing for cabbage is worth having; use a current recipe for a cooked salad dressing that specifies a finish temperature and refrigerated storage of a few days.
Boiled dressing was one American alternative to mayonnaise in households where good salad oil was expensive, unreliable or simply unfamiliar. Vinegar, butter, egg yolk and a heavy hand with mustard and pepper produced something sharp enough to stand up to shredded cabbage, and dressings of this type are plausible forerunners of the sweet-sour slaw dressings still made across the South and Midwest. The Dixie Cook Book, one of the late-nineteenth-century regional compilations drawing on contributed household receipts, contains a good deal of this make-a-quantity-and-bottle-it thinking: a cook with a cellar, a springhouse or a cool north pantry could put up a large batch once and draw on it through the hot months, and the recipe does mention its keeping qualities before it mentions what to eat it with. The pint and a half of vinegar and the cup of sugar serve as seasoning and, presumably, as preservative, an arrangement that made sense before refrigeration and does not survive contact with modern food safety practice.