Dressings, sauces and condiments
Sauces and condiments, including some very elaborated ones with lots of ingredients and spices, have always been used in cooking to add flavour and aromas to foods. Below is a brief description of the most used industrial products.
Mayonnaise (from the French “mayonnaise” or from the Catalan “mahonesa”)
This is one of the most famous and popular dressings; it is creamy and smooth, generally white or pale yellow, and is eaten cold. It is a stable emulsion of vegetable oil in water, with egg yolk as the emulsifier, flavoured with vinegar or lemon juice; the use of mustard is also allowed. The ingredients are egg yolk, mustard (optional), vinegar, oil and lemon juice. When other ingredients are added, it has various other names. Optional ingredients are, for example, salt, seasonings, spices, herbs, mustard.
Mustard
This is a pasty product with mustard seeds or mustard flour as a characteristic ingredient. Other typical ingredients are vinegar, sour grape juice, grape must, fruit juice, alcoholic beverages or other liquid foods, sugars, salt, herbs, spices and flavourings. It is a condiment obtained from the ground seeds of the mustard plant, native to Asia and a member of the cruciferous family. Mustard is used in cooking and is much loved by consumers. The ingredients in mustard vary from country to country, combined to create different recipes, with a more or less intense flavour depending on the spices used.
In Italy, industrial mustard is made of a mixture of:
- White mustard seeds
- Black mustard seeds
- Vinegar
- Oil
- Salt
- Sugar
Other famous and much appreciated variations are French mustard, especially Dijon mustard which is particularly spicy and flavoursome, and “moutarde à l’ancienne” – well-known and increasingly appreciated in Italy – which is an old-style grainy mustard made in part with whole mustard seeds, giving it a particularly grainy texture and an unmistakable flavour.