How To Make Thousand Island Dressing

Every now and then when I stop to think about it I wonder why ketchup is so much more popular than thousand island dressing. As far as I'm concerned thousand island is much more flavorful, and works on just about everything ketchup works on. Any fast food place that brags about their "secret sauce" is really talking about thousand island. (Oops, now it's not a secret any more.) One of my favorite uses -- and the one that gets the strangest looks -- is to use it instead of duck sauce with egg rolls. Mmmmmmm.

If you look carefully and shop around you may be able to find a brand that isn't mostly canola oil and corn syrup. But if you can't find a good one, this recipe is just what you need. It's way better than any bottled brand I've had, and only takes a couple of minutes to make a batch.

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Ingredients

2 cups mayonnaise

Mayonnaise

2 extra large eggs
1-1/2 cups olive pomace oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced pickle (sweet, dill, or combination)
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 extra large egg, hard boiled (optional)

Directions

Dice the onion.



Dice the pickle. If you have small ones, cut them in quarters ...



... and chop several at once.



For larger pickles, you may want to cut out the seeds before dicing the rest.

Set the onion and pickle aside. This is for your mise en place.




Mince the garlic.



If you're making the mayonnaise from scratch, put the eggs, white vinegar, mustard powder and oil in your mixing cup in that order. Put the stick blender all the way to the bottom, turn it on and slowly pull it up to the top. Don't worry if it's not thick enough for a sandwich, this is going to be in dressing.



Rather than get the food processor dirty, add the onion, pickle, garlic, tomato paste and balsamic vinegar to the cup the mayo was in.







Process it with the stick blender -- it doesn't have to be very smooth -- then add it to the mayo and stir.



Check the taste and add black pepper if needed.



And that's it. You could eat this by itself, it's so good.



One extra touch is to add a diced hard-boiled egg.

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Regular readers might notice I did lettuce yesterday and salad dressing today. You might think that means I'll be doing some kind of salad in the next day or two. That's very observant of you. But I'll be you don't expect taco salad.

Okay, now you expect taco salad. This is another one of those "delicious but not pretty enough for company" recipes. Why do we do that? Have favorite recipes that we won't serve to guests? I've never understood that. If you have any recipes that you like, but you won't serve to guests -- or your wife won't let you serve it to them -- post it in the comments. I'm thinking about doing a collection of "Too Good for Company" recipes.

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing with Home-made Mayonnaise

As much as I prefer cooking from scratch, there are a few things that require so many ingredients that I'll give in and just buy it. Worcestercire sauce is one of those. (But I'll be fixing that soon. Stay tuned.)

Ranch dressing used to be another thing that I'd just buy. Not any more. Now that I've got my technique for fresh mayonnaise down, I don't expect to ever have to buy ranch dressing again.

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Mayonnaise

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive pomace oil
1 egg plus one yolk
two teaspoons white vinegar or lemon juice or a mixture of both

Directions

You'll see that I included the immersion blender (AKA stick mixer) in the ingredients photo. You can do this by hand, but I don't recommend it unless you're looking for a good workout.

Start with the yolk and a couple of tablespoons of the oil in a the narrowest cup your mixer will fit in. (Mine came with a matching cup. Handy.) Blend for a couple of seconds. With the blender runing, drizzle the rest of the oil in very slowly. If the oil separates from the egg yolk you won't get a nice creamy mayo, you'll get a greasy lumpy mess.

As you get more practice you'll know just how fast you can add the oil. Unfortunately, you'll find out exactly where that point is by going over it and ruining the batch. If you do that, start with a fresh yolk and a couple teaspoons of oil, then start adding the "broken" batch in a spoonful at a time.

Once you've got all the oil added, add the second egg and the vinegar and/or lemon and hit it with the blender again. Poof, instant mayonnaise.



If you think that looks a little thin for mayonnaise, you're right. By leaving out the second egg white, you get a creamier texture and a richer egg flavor. I think it works better when using the mayo as a sauce or, like I'm doing here, as an ingredient in something more complex.

Dressing

Ingredients

1/2 cup mayonnaise (see above)
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 scallions
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons parsley
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
(Note: I left the white vinegar from the mayonnaise ingredients in the shot. Oops.)

Prep the scallions by cutting off the root end, including most of the white section ...



... then cutting off the papery part of the green end.



Then chop it thin all the way down its length ...



... and scoop everything back together for a second run through with the knife.



You want to end up with a pile of very finely chopped scallion.



Mince the garlic and add everything into the bowl.



And mix well.

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I'd love to show a picture of this dressing on the broiled carrots I did that night. Unfortunately, I knocked my camera off the counter while working on the pork roast. It's in for repairs right now. If I can't find a loaner by this weekend, I may not have anything new to put up next week. I've got my fingers crossed that it's a quick fix ... and inexpensive would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.