For those of you who grew up with the kiwi lettuce salad with condensed milk mustard dressing, what did you have in your salad?
In our house it was lettuce, cucumber and tomato, we were pretty plain eaters.
What did you have in yours and what do you think is traditional?

When I made the above dressing for lettuce, I included grated carrot mixed through the actual salad and then topped with slices of hard boiled eggs, tomato,and then grated cheese

In our house the ingredients were arranged on individual small flat plates. There was usually shredded iceberg lettuce, tomato quarters, sliced pickled beetroot (or jellied beetroot for special lunches), sliced cucumber, grated cheddar, grated carrot and a big spoonful of condensed milk salad dressing.

Sometimes the same ingredients were arranged on a dinner plate with a small tin of salmon and served as a summer meal.

I can't really remember, but I have a feeling that thinly sliced luncheon sausage sometimes featured.

Tomatoes, cucumber, hard boiled eggs, sliced, grated carrot, beetroot (on the side), grated cheese.
My husband still loves that dressing. I don't, it's too sweet for me.

Now you're going down memory lane! Ours was similar to the above, but never any meat with it, not layered, just the chopped lettuce at the bottom and the other items piled on the top. We thought it was a pretty flash salad.

Now.....what about mashed potato dished up with an ice cream scoop that had a lever which flicked a band across the bottom to smoothly tip it out! Two scoops for the men, once scoop for the ladies and children.

Oh how I envied those salads, our salad was always made with vinaigrette, and I aspired to salad made like my friends had it. LOL, I couldn't even consider condensed milk dressing these days!

Still make this dressing sometimes especially if having a drier meat such as chicken breast.I also use it as a spread on bread rolls instead of butter when feeding a crowd. Our salads were lettuce on the bottom then layers of grated carrot, sliced boiled eggs, sometimes spring onion, sliced cucumber and grated cheese. Beetroot on the side.

Sorry Guys, but I mentally gag thinking about that sweetened condensed milk dressing! So so nasty, and probably why there are very few dressings I like or eat, and mainly eat green salads 'naked' lol.

Yes, we never had this, but my father used to put a little pile of sugar on his plate and dip his lettuce leaves in it before each bite. Only way he would eat the rabbit food. Once, in my 20s, I went to a little old lady's house and she served me a cup of tea with sweetened condensed milk in it - it was as awful as the thought of it on salad.....

I have a girlfriend whose standard lunch fare is always ham on the bone, a large boiled potato and the above iceberg etc salad with condensed milk dressing. My husband always put his best face on while avoiding the dressing, but I realised I rather enjoyed the whole thing again, now and again. I'd never make it myself for myself or anybody else but it was one of the first things I learned to make as a child. Yes, it is very sweet, but with plenty of Coleman's dried mustard powder, thinned out with milk and a goodly slug of malt vinegar it is a little journey down memory lane I don't mind wandering into occasionally.

Her standard evening meal was a huge chunk of topside pyramid shaped beef, salted, peppered and wrapped in thick short pastry, then whacked into the oven until she remembered to take it out. Once again served with huge boiled plain potatoes, no butter, no gravy, a tiny pot of mixed up Coleman's mustard. Her husband would receive the nudge to go out into the wilderness for an armful of silverbeet. This was ceremoniously conveyed inside to great exclamations of oohs and ahhhs, washed then without further ado, bent and pummelled into the biggest pot, lid slammed on and cooked for about an hour. Meanwhile, the meat is out of the oven standing in pride of place centre table and I'm thinking all manner of uncharitable thoughts, such as, 'this is going to be tough as'. Finally, the time comes to slaughter the triangular beast, just as I'm about to fall off my perch after a surfeit of wine, served non stop in her thimble sized blue Murano Ventian glasses, used for everything after a trip to Venice. Well, what do you know, it was always just perfect. The meat a gorgeous tender medium rare. If I thought I could emulate it I'd give it a go.

My very first meal in N.Z. (I was eight years old) included a jug of salad dressing...I liked my food and was partial in those days to Heinz's Salad Cream and this looked the same so I helped myself liberally. It was the dressing you are all talking about. Never again!

Ok, I'll be the weird one here.. I'm 43, lived my whole childhood in NZ, and I've never tried it! I'm very grateful my parents made friends with an Italian immigrant in 1965 and it totally changed my mother's view on food and I don't believe she cooked a "kiwi" meal from that day forward. From reading the ingredients, I think I can get a feel for the flavour, but can't imagine it as a 'salad' dressing



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2019 09:17PM by Jenna.

I've been in NZ since 1967 and I've never even heard of this dressing, thank goodness! Sounds quite.......................how do you put it? Disgusting!

You've had a lucky escape Lorna. It is indeed disgusting. I don't know its origin but I presume that it was invented by a food technologist to promote Highlander sweetened condensed milk (much the same as the reduced cream and onion soup dip that was invented to promote Nestlé reduced cream).

Does anyone know how far back the Highlander salad dressing dates? Was it invented in NZ? It might be based on "boiled salad dressing", which looks much the same but is not nearly so sweet.

While I don't make it I also don't have an aversion to it.
A lot of Asian dressings are combine sweet with sour and spice and this does the same.
I guess it depends on how much condensed milk you use in proportion to the vinegar and mustard.
The creaminess of the dressing I am OK with.

I have just spent a little time looking around the www seeing if I could see reference to the development of the dressing.
I can't see anything exact but there is a German dressing that uses evaporated milk, sugar, vinegar and onion, I wonder if ours is a variation on that one.
Europeans would make coleslaw dressings with the addition of cream so I guess this is just a variation of with the sugar already added.

Lucky you Jenna! I always say I developed a love of cooking as an act of rebellion against the meat and 3 veg with no sauces, herbs or anything foreign.
Ours was a very plain house.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2019 01:34AM by helen.

I don't have any aversion to it either. It is sweet and sour with a spicy hit of mustard - I think it actually has more tang than aioli (the shop bought aioli that is). Why is that disgusting?
If it's the health aspects that are a concern, I totally agree. Condensed milk is not the healthiest ingredient and I never buy it. Absolutely love it though and will lick the spoon if using it in baking or making a Vietnamese Coffeetini

My thoughts are that this dressing was extremely popular in the 70s and 80s. Now everyone has fancy vinaigrette's etc, and we have more of a weight problem now than when people were consuming a dressing with condensed milk in it?

Yes, well, sweetened condensed milk is three and a half calories per gram and olive oil is just under nine calories per gram......

This is timely
[www.cuisine.co.nz]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2019 03:01AM by Lynette.

Irene Field Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My thoughts are that this dressing was extremely
> popular in the 70s and 80s. Now everyone has
> fancy vinaigrette's etc, and we have more of a
> weight problem now than when people were consuming
> a dressing with condensed milk in it?


I think the obesity epidemic has more to do with the vastly increased consumption of ultra-processed high carb foods over the past couple of decades. I don't think you can blame obesity on vinaigrettes...

Just to clarify, my Mum came from French influenced Channel Islands... we ate vinaigrette on our salads because that was the way it was done where she was from, nothing fancy about it at all.

I once had a visitor, who, when she heard me asking my daughter to dress the salad, stated that she didn't realise that you could make a dressing and that she thought it had to come from plastic bottles in the supermarket!

My mum would sharpen her favourite knife, roll a few ice berg lettuce leaves up into a tight bundle and slice the lettuce really, really fine. Put it in a salad bowl that had holes in it and a matching plate underneath, Sliced tomato and egg on the top with chopped chives. My Aunty Dawn would make a lovely dressing with cream, vinegar, powdered mustard and sugar - now that was really good. The condensed milk dressing is still my husbands favourite.

cheers Gran



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2019 07:51AM by gran.

A few years back Greggs made a packet mix mayonnaise very close to the highlander recipe, it disappeared off the shelves never to be seen again. All things in moderation, so a little highlander occasionally is okay .I have gone back to using iceberg lettuce in various form, favourite a wedge with toppings and dressing/vinaigrette of choice. Have enjoyed reading this subject.

I remember going to my aunt's place and she had a dressing/mayo she used. I found later that she had used some reduced cream instead of condensed milk and altered the other ingredients to balance. It was quite delicious. I hadn't given it much thought until this thread came up and I will be trying it out again.

Mum would make a boiled salad dressing with eggs, vinegar, mustard etc. which would most likely have come from Aunt Daisy. I was very fond of it as a child and I remember she would keep it in the fridge and add cold milk or cream to thin it down. The salad would consist of thinly sliced lettuce leaves, tomatoes and/or eggs and cucumber..........whatever salady plants Dad had in his garden. Jellied beetroot was also commonly served along side the salad the beetroot having come from the vege garden. In the latter years of her life she made the condensed milk dressing. Nice to think back to those days.
Regards,
Dawn.

This dressing is always in my fridge, everyones favourite. Only one my Mum and MIL made. I use a can of condensed milk, a can of white vinegar, ( Mum and MIL used malt vinegar), lots of salt and pepper and a small teaspoon of mustard, into a large jar. Shake it really well, then leave it till needed, then i take out what i need for a meal and thin it with a little milk. Lasts in the fridge for ever. Best dressing for ice berg lettuce.

Kerryanne yes we did the same proportions of 1 can sweetened condensed milk to 1 can malt vinegar with 1 teaspoon mustard powder and then salt and pepper.
It was always in the fridge at home in a glass jar with a screw top lid.

We didnt have it al all, my Dad is Italian and we always had salad after our meal and it was with salt/pepper/oil and vinegar - simple.

I do remember having it at BBQs and it was very sweet tasting? Its not a salad I would get excited over especially wilting in the warmth over summer.

It needs crispy cold iceberg, a bit of crunch - maybe a salty nut or bacon, cherry tomatoes, celery or cucumber, maybe even some apple.
Vanessa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2019 07:42AM by Vanessa45.

I thinks it's quite nice for a change, nostalgic certainly! I haven't made it for quite a while but I used to put a whole peeled clove of garlic in the jar which gave a a subtle garlic flavor after a few days. I think its great with plain iceberg and the iceberg, tomato and egg versions mentioned. Because you make it yourself every version is slightly different to taste. Lots of men seem to really enjoy it.