SAUCE MAYONNAISE.
(For salads, cold meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables.)
This is a very fine sauce when all the ingredients used for it are good; but it will prove an uneatable compound to a delicate taste unless it be made with oil of the purest quality.
Put into a large basin the yolks only of two very fresh eggs, carefully freed from specks, with a little salt and cayenne; stir these well together, then add about a teaspoonful of the purest salad oil, and work the mixture round with a wooden spoon until it appears like cream. Pour in by slow degrees nearly half a pint of oil, continuing at each interval to work the sauce as at first until it resumes the smoothness of cream, and not a particle of the oil remains visible; then add a couple of tablespoonsful of plain French or of tarragon vinegar, and one of cold water to whiten the sauce. A bit of clear veal jelly the size of an egg will improve it greatly. The reader who may have a prejudice against the unboiled eggs which enter into the composition of the Mayonnaise, will find that the most fastidious taste would not detect their being raw, if the sauce be well made; and persons who dislike oil may partake of it in this form, without being aware of its presence, provided always that it be perfectly fresh, and pure in flavour, for otherwise it will be easily perceptible.
Yolks of fresh unboiled eggs, 2; salt, 1/2 saltspoonful, or rather more; cayenne; oil, full third of pint; French or tarragon vinegar, 2 tablespoonsful; cold water, 1 tablespoonful; meat jelly (if at hand), size of an egg.
RED OR GREEN MAYONNAISE SAUCE.
Colour may be given either to the preceding or to the following Sauce Mayonnaise by mingling with it some hard lobster-coral reduced to powder by rubbing it through a very fine hair-sieve: the red hue of this is one of the most brilliant and beautiful that can be seen, but the sauce for which it is used can only be appropriately served with fish or fish-salads. Spinach-green will impart a fine tint to any preparation, but its flavour is objectionable: that of parsley-green is more agreeable. Directions for both of these are contained in the previous chapter.
IMPERIAL MAYONNAISE.
(An elegant jellied sauce, or salad-dressing.)
Put into a bowl half a pint of aspic, or of any very clear pale jellied stock (that made usually for good white soup will serve for the purpose excellently); add to it a couple of spoonsful of the purest olive-oil, one of sharp vinegar, and a little fine salt and cayenne. Break up the jelly quite small with the points of a whisk of osier-twigs, stir the ingredients well together, and then whisk them gently until they are converted into a smooth white sauce. This receipt was derived originally from an admirable French cook,[[61]] who stood quite at the head of his profession; but as he was accustomed to purvey for the tables of kings and emperors, his directions require some curtailment and simplifying to adapt them to the resources of common English life. He directs the preparation to be mixed and worked—to use a technical expression—over ice, which cannot always be commanded, except in opulent establishments, and in large towns. It is not, however, essential to the success of this sauce, which will prove extremely good if made and kept in a cool larder; or, if the bowl in which it is mingled be placed in a pan of cold water, into which plenty of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac, roughly powdered, are thrown at the moment it is set into it. In this country a smaller proportion of oil, and a larger one of acid, are usually preferred to the common French salad-dressings, in which there is generally a very small portion of vinegar. To some tastes a spoonful or two of cream would improve the present Mayonnaise, which may be varied also with chili, tarragon, or other flavoured vinegar. It should be served heaped high in the centre of the salad, for which, if large, double the quantity directed here should be prepared.