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 136at 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.