Recipe no. 168 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 86.
Ingredients
- egg yolks
- salt
- pepper
- lemon
- oil
- water
- vinegar
Preparation
- Getting startedPut into the bottom of a salad bowl 2 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, as much pepper and the juice of half a lemon. Pour in, little by little, about 2 decilitres of oil, that is an ordinary glassful, stirring without stopping with a wooden spoon, or better still with a kitchen whisk.
- Working in the oil graduallyThe oil should fall only in a thin stream; as you see the sauce thicken, add from time to time a tablespoon of water and a few drops of lemon juice.
- Correcting if necessaryYou should obtain a fairly thick sauce without it being too stiff, for in that last case it would be too oily and would risk breaking all at once. This is remedied by adding one or two tablespoons of lukewarm water and working it firmly with the whisk. One may use lemon juice or good vinegar indifferently, it is a matter of taste.
Reboul's text
Put into the bottom of a salad bowl 2 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, as much pepper and the juice of half a lemon. Pour in, little by little, about 2 decilitres of oil, that is an ordinary glassful, stirring without stopping with a wooden spoon, or better still with a kitchen whisk.
The oil should fall only in a thin stream; as you see the sauce thicken, add from time to time a tablespoon of water and a few drops of lemon juice.
You should obtain a fairly thick sauce without it being too stiff, for in that last case it would be too oily and would risk breaking all at once. This is remedied by adding one or two tablespoons of lukewarm water and working it firmly with the whisk.
One may use lemon juice or good vinegar indifferently, it is a matter of taste.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| saladié | salad bowl |
| versa | pour |
| boulegant | stirring |
| fouit | kitchen whisk |
| fielat | thin stream |
| espessi | thicken |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 168, page 86. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.