“My bad management,” she thought. “I ought to have set her to wash the lettuce, and leave it drying in a cloth while she did the olives.”
Marta had managed to cut three or four olives into small pieces, but had evidently not seized the idea. Molly stoned another one for her, and then Marta once more began.
“Now, Marta, I want you to stone those and then to wash the lettuce, putting each leaf on a clean cloth as you do it. I am going to make a mayonnaise sauce, which I must show you another day.”
She broke the egg, putting the white into a cup, the yolk into her ice-cold bowl, and began to stir it. This she did for a few seconds, and then added a few drops of oil, stirred just long enough for it to disappear in the yolk, then added a very little more, and so on, stirring steadily, waiting till the last oil was blended before adding more. When it had once assumed the pale opaque yellow that told her the mayonnaise had “come,” she added oil in rather larger quantities. Five minutes after this point the mayonnaise was as thick as butter in warm weather; a little more oil and it could no longer be stirred, for it clung to the spoon.
“Now, Marta, you see when it gets like this I add a few drops of vinegar, which changes the color,—whitens it,—but stirring a few seconds blends the vinegar, and it now is like very thick cream. I can go on adding oil now till it is very thick again.”
When it had again reached the unmanageable point Molly put to it, gradually, a half dessert-spoonful of vinegar (which she had ordered to be very strong), a salt-spoonful of salt, and a very little white pepper; she then tasted it and found it would stand a few drops more vinegar for Harry’s taste, as he liked it rather sharp.
Marta had finished the olives fairly well, and had the lettuce drying on the cloth.
“Grind two table-spoonfuls of coffee, Marta. Wait, I’ll tighten the screw of the mill, while you put that French coffee-pot on the back of the stove to get warm.”
Molly placed the dry end of the cloth over the lettuce leaves and patted them, resolving that a salad-basket must be an immediate purchase. She took the leaves, now free from water, and laid them over the salad-dish, reserving the whitest for the border; then she placed the chicken in the centre, mixing with it the pieces of olive Marta had broken in her first attempts, and smoothing it with a knife
The mayonnaise would have been all the better if it could have stood in the ice-box half an hour; and, another time, she would have it made early on the day it was wanted; however, it was thick enough to mask the chicken, only less would have answered the purpose had it been ice cold. She spread it with a knife evenly, then laid the stoned olives around at intervals—and the salad was ready.