Date Cooked: August 28, 2008
Recipe: 5
Page: 76
There were a few reasons why I decided to torture myself today. I say torture because I can’t think of too many other ways to describe the process of making mayonnaise by hand. The first reason is that I am going to be away for a few days and I didn’t want to do anything that would leave me with a ton of leftovers. The second reason is that I want to start eating more salads so I have been looking though the salads section of the ‘Best’ book.
I actually didn’t select mayonnaise first. I had decided to make a salad dressing which you will see in a later post and one of the ingredients for the salad dressing was mayonnaise. I didn’t have any mayo in the house but I did have the ingredients for making it from scratch. Now in the ‘Best’ book they have several versions of mayonnaise but I decided on the plain one since it was going to be used as a base for the salad dressing. They also have the option of doing it by hand or using a food processor. The food processor version doubles the recipe and uses whole eggs instead of just the yolk. I was curious as to the difference in egg usage considering the only real difference to the recipe was the use of the food processor. After whisking by hand I can only assume no human can reach the whisking speed required to emulsify oil into a whole egg. Why did I try to whisk by hand? I thought it would be fun…
I think my entire arm seized up after the first 3rd of oil had been added. My brain could not actually coordinate my arm to move in a natural manner. I knew I wanted to whisk vigorously but my arm and brain had decided now was a time to have a little family spat. I took a momentary pause to help smooth over the brain/arm relationship and once both parties had come to an agreement I went back to whisking, this time following the agreed upon terms and proceeding a little slower. Surprisingly the mixture started to thicken up and soon I had a beautiful, yellow, creamy... mayonnaise?
It turned out pretty good. Would I make this again from scratch? Probably, but I would reserve it for occasions when mayonnaise needed to be spotlighted. I would definitely like to try some of the other variations since the addition of spices and herbs could make for a plethora of tasty options. Of course next time I will try the food processor. Might be easier.
Recipe: 5
Page: 76
There were a few reasons why I decided to torture myself today. I say torture because I can’t think of too many other ways to describe the process of making mayonnaise by hand. The first reason is that I am going to be away for a few days and I didn’t want to do anything that would leave me with a ton of leftovers. The second reason is that I want to start eating more salads so I have been looking though the salads section of the ‘Best’ book.
I actually didn’t select mayonnaise first. I had decided to make a salad dressing which you will see in a later post and one of the ingredients for the salad dressing was mayonnaise. I didn’t have any mayo in the house but I did have the ingredients for making it from scratch. Now in the ‘Best’ book they have several versions of mayonnaise but I decided on the plain one since it was going to be used as a base for the salad dressing. They also have the option of doing it by hand or using a food processor. The food processor version doubles the recipe and uses whole eggs instead of just the yolk. I was curious as to the difference in egg usage considering the only real difference to the recipe was the use of the food processor. After whisking by hand I can only assume no human can reach the whisking speed required to emulsify oil into a whole egg. Why did I try to whisk by hand? I thought it would be fun…
I think my entire arm seized up after the first 3rd of oil had been added. My brain could not actually coordinate my arm to move in a natural manner. I knew I wanted to whisk vigorously but my arm and brain had decided now was a time to have a little family spat. I took a momentary pause to help smooth over the brain/arm relationship and once both parties had come to an agreement I went back to whisking, this time following the agreed upon terms and proceeding a little slower. Surprisingly the mixture started to thicken up and soon I had a beautiful, yellow, creamy... mayonnaise?
It turned out pretty good. Would I make this again from scratch? Probably, but I would reserve it for occasions when mayonnaise needed to be spotlighted. I would definitely like to try some of the other variations since the addition of spices and herbs could make for a plethora of tasty options. Of course next time I will try the food processor. Might be easier.
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Easy fresh homemade mayo recipe:
ReplyDeleteTake an ordinary soup plate and a whisk.
Put 1 egg yolk in plate, one and a half teaspoon of real mustard, salt and pepper to taste.
Using the whisk, stir gently (no vigorous whisking needed) the egg yolk with salt pepper and mustard till you obtain a "smooth" emulsion. (An emulsion is an intimate mixture of normally non-mixable components. Mayo is an emulsion of egg yolk, oil and vinegar. The mustard serves as an emulsifying agent).
Then add like a tablespoon of oil (Avoid olive oil since the taste is too strong)and stir again till you see that all the oil you added gets mixed into the emulsion. After that, add more oil, stir till absorbed etc.etc. When enough quantity attained, add tablespoon of ordinary white vinegar and stir. This will bleach the mayo and acidify the taste a bit to make the mayo taste less "oily".
Takes about 5 minutes to obtain a plate of good, "stiff" mayo.
Leftover mayo can be kept in fridge for a week or so if covered with saran wrap or similar.
This is how my grandma Irma (born 1887) taught me how to make mayo in 1965. I still do it that way.