2.23.2013

Homemade Mayonnaise is Sublime

I grew up loving mayo. I even dipped potato chips in it (yeah greasy I know).  Then I fell out of love with it, especially from having a very old jar in the fridge that I didn't realize was rancid. Oops.  That's condiments in our house I guess.

After making this I'm in love.  Home made tastes SO MUCH BETTER. It is pretty miraculous.
  • I shredded cabbage on the mandolin slicer and tossed with mayo-- yum.  
  • I boiled asparagus stalks and dipped it in mayo- sublime.  
  • Mix the mayo with water/dairy and onion/garlic powder for a ceasar/ranch type dressing for lettuce.   
  • In fact, home made is so good you could be the life of a potluck by bringing it in some type of dish or flavored as a dip for fresh cut veggies.
Couple good reads about mayonnaise. The first explains why you don't want to use 100% olive oil.  The NYT article also has ideas for how to cook with and use up homemamde mayo.

I had been scared to try making it for years(?).  But surprisingly with this recipe I had no trouble at all, besides taking forever to drizzle the oil- next time I could probably speed up for the last 1/2 cup of oil. From reading the articles sounds like having egg and oil be same temp and the tablespoon of water, along with using hand mixer (instead of blender or food processor) are keys to success.  And don't worry about the flavor of the mustard, it's not obtrusive and the mustard helps emulsify.


Method:
Pour boiling water into a ceramic mug. Drop in one farm fresh egg (in the shell). Set timer for 60 seconds for the egg's soak in the water. 

This warms up the egg and theoretically kills bacteria? I don't really know but makes me feel less squeamish about eating raw egg (even though I happily eat raw egg in cookie dough, but that's another story). 

Remove the egg from the mug, crack open egg and separate into yolk and white. Use the white for some other purpose (like an omelet, egg fried rice or any of your favorite egg white desserts).

Combine in a stainless steel mixing bowl:
egg yolk (from above)
1 TB water
1 TB lemon juice (apporx 1/2 lemon, I used meyer lemon)
1 tsp dijon mustard

Measure out 1 C canola oil (or safflower or grapeseed apparently work well too-- try to get non GMO oils) in a pyrex cup.

Get the electric hand mixer going and drizzle the oil drop by drop into the bowl slowly while mixing thoroughly. It sounds like once most of the

Season with salt (approx 1/2 teaspoon?) to taste.

Store in the fridge in a clean sealed container and use only clean utensils when dipping in to preserve the life of the mayo. I used a pint glass canning jar and wide mouth plastic lid. There are different ideas on how long it lasts- 1 to 2 weeks?

Options: I've seen recipes that add seasonings to the mayo- always after it is emulsified.  Stuff like rosemary, black pepper, bacon, garlic...



1 comment:

Tammy said...

Changed this up to make ceasar dressing!

Sub in 1/2 C sunflower oil, then 1/4 C olive oil (i.e. total 3/4 C oil instead of 1 cup).

Then add 1/4 tsp fine salt, 1-2 minced garlic cloves and drip of worcestershire sauce.