Culinary jottings

The other form of salad dressing is closely connected with mayonnaise sauce, and has many admirers. With some vegetable ingredients it undoubtedly works better than its plainer relative. In England, however, it is almost always spoilt by being overdosed with vinegar, — common, acid stuff without any flavouring, — and in nearly every cookery book of the average capacity, you are told to mix oil and vinegar in equal parts, which I have already denounced. An old recipe called " Dr. Kitchener's salad mixture" embodies as many mistakes as could well be made in a dressing of this kind : — " two table-spoonfuls of oil, or melted butter (!) two or three table-spoonfuls of vinegar." The " poet's recipe" already alluded to is equally faulty. In point of fact, the part played by the vinegar in these dressings is really so small as regards measurement that a fixed amount can scarcely be laid down. In proportion to the oil, one-sixth is to ray mind the outside allotment that should be given. This is a good every-day salad mixture : — Put the very-hard boiled yolks of two eggs into a slop basin, with a tea-spoonful of powdered mustard, a scant salt-spoonful of salt, a pinch of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of minced shallot. Bruise these with a wooden or silver spoon, and work them to a paste with a little salad oil. Add oil by degrees till your paste is about the consistency of batter, then toss into it one by one the raw yolks of three eggs, continue the working, and add oil, till you have a nice rich sauce coating the spoon pretty thickly : you can now dole out a dessert-spoonful of tarragon or other aromatic vinegar, and mix it thoroughly with the other ingredients : the sauce will become creamy the moment it receives the vinegar. Taste your sauce by dipping a leaf of lettuce into a spoonful of it, and finish it off, as regards further addition of oil or vinegar, according to discretion. The eye, and the palate are your surest guides : no true SALADS. 209 salad-maker works by measure. As soon as you have got a creamy, well-flavoured sauce to suit your fancy, strain it through the little block tin strainer to get rid of every lump, and the little bits of onion. This should be done over the sauce-boat, which should be put into the ice box as soon as it is filled. If yon want a thick sauce of this kind, lightly whip the oil with the raw eggs adding it by degrees, and the mixture will soon be stiff enough, especially if you put in another raw yolk. Use French mustard (moutarde de Maille) in preference to English. Never use Worcester sauce on any account whatever. N.B. — In all rich salad, or mayonnaise dressings, cream may be used instead of oil, or be added to a made sauce as a finishing touch.