Salad Cream


Salad cream was invented by Heinz in 1914 and was very popular with working classes in the UK, a socialist salad dressing if you will. However, its popularity waned in the latter part of the century, with the arrival of the decadent mayonnaise, flaunting its spanish roots and pushing the humble salad cream to the side. But like any good socialist, salad cream would not go away and still remains a firm favourite in the UK with people who have refused to climb that social ladder to mayonnaise.

Of course homemade salad cream is the best salad cream of all, and I will be giving you a recipe for that shortly. But first, if you will insist on buying salad cream, please pay attention to the following;

  • Buy Heinz Salad Cream, it’s simply the best. There are other supermarket own brands out there, but they are inferior so buy Heinz.
  • Buy Heinz salad cream in a glass bottle, it contains a thicker sauce than the plastic squeezy bottle variety. The glass bottle also provides a challenge, not to mention an upper body workout, it can take up to five minutes of serious bottle shaking before it will release its cargo onto your plate. Please don’t cheat and tease the sauce out with knife, you’ll miss out on the satistaction factor of releasing it naturally.
  • Finally, avoid at all costs, those little packets of salad cream that lurk on the tables in pubs and service stations. I don’t know what they put in those packets, but it isn’t salad cream.
  • Ok, the recipe for homemade salad cream comes originally from Mrs Beaton, but when I’ve made it myself I have changed it a little, Mrs Beaton used far too much vinegar in my humble opinion, but the recipe is flexible so add more if you wish.

    To start you will need to hard boil some eggs, I normally do 6 or 8 depending on the size of the egg. Fresh salad cream will only last for about 3 days in the fridge, so it’s pointless making a huge batch. Boil the eggs for about 10 minutes then place in ice cold water to cool. Once cooled remove the shells and slice in half, place the yolks in a bowl and wrap the whites in cling film and place in the fridge, you can do something else with them, but that’s for another post ;)

    To the egg yolks add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a splash of vinegar. You can also add a sqeeze of lemon juice too if you want. Blend all these together to form a thick paste. Now start to add some cream, do it slowly and keep mixing. You don’t want the sauce too thick or too runny.

    When you think it’s nearly at the right consistency, stop and do a taste test. Now is the time to add more mustard or pepper if your taste buds demand it. Finish off by adding a little more vinegar until you acheive the right consistency.

    Of course if you don’t want to add more vinegar add a little more cream, as I said earlier this is a flexible recipe so make it how you like it.

    This one is interesting.That sounds really nice.Hmm tasty.Oooh yummie.Bliss on a plate. Top stuff. (4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)
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    Reader Comments

    Thick cream? Thin cream? What kind of cream are we speaking about? Fess up Ms. Killer Salad!!

    I’m a fan of Heinz salad cream, I must confess….but I have full faith in your recipe. After all a good, need I say a great salad cream never goes away as you referenced

    Oil da hungry poil

    I don’t know many people who are not fans of Heinz salad cream, it’s yummy.

    Oh and the cream, I use thick cream, in the UK we call it double cream.