Confession Time

It's Friday afternoon - and nobody reads blogs of Friday afternoon, right? Far too busy getting ready for the weekend, going on holiday, giving the dog a bath etc etc. So I can happily go ahead and confess My Guilty Secret. I love salad cream. I know we're all supposed to be sophisticated since 1982 and it's mayo or nothing. Truth is, I was brought up on salad cream - nobody had mayonnaise, we didn't even know what that was. It probably had, like so many things, to do with home refrigeration. I am so old I can remember our first refrigerator arriving when I was about 8 years old. So revered was it, the machine almost had an antimacassar (look it up!) draped over it. Fridge or no fridge, we still had salad cream.

I am the lucky owner of a very old pamphlet style collection of sauce recipes and wondrous wonders of wonderment - there is a recipe for Salad Cream. The proper stuff. Looks and smells and even tastes the same as I remember. Not, you note, as it tastes now, because now it will probably have all kinds of ingredients which weren't there was I was a young aficionado of all things salad dressing.

Here's the thing - I have made some.

Now I am going to show you how so you can make some too.

It's pretty simple - weigh out the dry ingredients - 30g plain flour, 30g mustard powder, 25g salt, 70g sugar, and 1 teaspoon ground white pepper. Sieve these into a large bowl and stir to combine.

Break 2 large eggs into a large jug and whisk together. Add 1 litre milk, any kind, and 30ml olive oil. Whisk again to combine then gently pour into the dry ingredients, whisking as you do so to avoid as many lumps as possible. Tip all of this into a large pan and gradually add 500ml distilled or white vinegar, whisking throughout to mix.

Pour around 10cms boiling water into bottom pan   Set top pan over to cook sauce

Now, set your pan over another, slightly smaller pan, with around 10cms of boiling water in the bottom. You need to cook the salad cream but not have it on a direct heat source. If you have a double boiler which is made for the job, then use that. The bottom of the top pan should be touching the boiling water in the bottom pan - OK? You need to keep stirring with a whisk and it is going to take about 20 minutes to thicken. You can play Candy Crush on your phone, check your emails, read a book - but  don't go off an leave it for any time. It will gradually thicken to the consistence of pouring custard. Take the pan from the heat and take your bottles from the oven.

(I am going to try microwaving the next batch I make - much like how I make lemon curd - I'll report back if it is successful or not.)

Pour into the warm bottles and seal immediately. I even have the iconic bottles to put it in!
The sauce will thicken more as it cools. Mmmmm, salad cream sandwiches - I wonder if they will taste the same as I remember.

This Salad Cream will keep unopened at ambient temperature for 6 months but refrigerate once opened.

Go make