Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Mayonnaise Sauce. — In this most popular sauce it is above all things necessary that the oil should be of the best quality, and the eggs perfectly fresh. New-laid eggs are not so suitable as those laid a day before the Sauce is wanted, but in no case should the eggs be more than twenty-four hours old. Unlike most Sauces, Mayonnaise is begun dry. Put into a soup-plate a teaspoonful of mustard powder, half a saltspoonful of salt, and the same of mignonette pepper. Bruise these thoroughly together with the back of a plated spoon. Now add a little oil, and work the whole to a paste, dropping in the oil, very patiently, by degrees. When the mixture is moist, beat gently into it the yolks of two raw eggs one by one, freed from the germ and from every particle of white. Continue beating, and drop in plenty of oil. Judge by your eye when you have made enough sauce. Then add exactly one dessertspoonful of tarragon vinegar. The moment the vinegar is added the sauce will become creamy. Work it well with the spoon, and pass it through the tin strainer into a cold sauce-boat. Of course cream can be used instead of oil, and if sufficient cream cannot be spared for the whole Sauce begin the Mayonnaise with oil, and add a dessertspoonful of cream at the last moment. Most English cooks spoil Mayonnaise by adding too much vinegar ; it should only be in the proportion of one-eighth compared to the quantity of oil. It is by far the best plan to measure the dessertspoonful of vinegar and to add it at the last moment, thus ensuring a creamy and not an acid sauce, but many cooks adhere to the mistaken custom of working the vinegar into the sauce with the oil or cream. Eveiy form of Mayonnaise must be served perfectly cold. To ensure this, set the bowl of sauce over broken ice as soon as the Mayonnaise is made, which should not be very long before it is wanted. Sauce Mayonnaise Gollee is made without eggs and with aspic jelly. It is particularly good with chicken salad or fish salad. Put into a bowl half a pint of half-melted aspic jelly. If the weather is warm, set the bowl over ice. With a small whisk whip into the jelly half a gill of salad oil. The Sauce will soon look creamy. Add a little more oil, whipping all the while, till the Mayonnaise is like smooth cream, and finish with a dessertspoonful of tarragon vinegar. Tartare Sauce, although very like Mayonnaise, is made somewhat differently. It should be made in a cool larder, and the bowl should be set over broken ice during the process. Put into the bowl two raw yolks of eggs, a teaspoonful of French mustard, and a small saltspoonful of salt. If French mustard is not liked, use mustard flour. Mix all well together, and then begin to add the oil, being most careful to add it drop by drop. Blend the oil thoroughly with the eggs, and go on, adding a very few drops of oil at a time, till you have used a gill of oil, and the Sauce has become smooth, thick, and creamy. Now stir in a dessertspoonful of vinegar, and add the minced herbs which give to Tartare Sauce its distinctive speckled green appearance. These should be a teaspoonful of minced chervil, of burnet, of gherkins (if liked), and of either minced chives or onion threads, with half a teaspoonful only of minced tarragon.