I finally made mayonnaise!

Cafe Society
1

Yeah, don’t laugh. I’ve failed a few times in the past, but last night after concocting another broken, liquidy, yellow mayo in the food processor, I brought out the whisk and went to town making another emulsion… My arm still hurts like hell but I did it. I think I was probably being too cautious in ensuring the mayo didn’t break by whisking so much… So much to the point that I think next time I’ll use a hand mixer with a whisk attachment.

I suppose the next logical step is cooked egg-based sauces, yes?

To me, the most amazing part was seeing a liquidy yellow mixture transform into a thick white creation. Oh, and it tasted pretty good too.

2

I haven’t done it for ages, but I know what you mean. It’s magical the way it transforms itself into something totally different.

3

Something different and very tasty.

One hint: don’t use all extra virgin olive oil. It will be completely inedible, except to masochists. One-quarter to one-third is plenty.

4

The next logical step is aioli.

You should have been cranking out the hollandaise ages ago! What’s wrong with you?!

Seriously, I love making mayo. (Any time I make a potato salad, or tuna salad, or a chicken salad, etc… it starts with separating an egg.)

But the other good thing that begins with egg yolk is hollandaise sauce. It isn’t any harder, but it’ll get you laid more, and that’s God’s Own Truth.

5

I have a question about that. Can you make a mayo that is tasty using olive oil if some or all of it is light? Is the only way to get decent flavor to put a different kind of oil in it? Thanks.

6

Doubtful, my girlfriend hates eggs. :frowning:

She used to not even eat mayonnaise but I’ve slowly swayed her into accepting it as a necessary condiment for many applications.

7

The mayo’s flavor will be almost entirely determined by the type of oil you use, so tasty oil = tasty mayo.

My recommendation is to use Italian, Spanish, or French olive oil marked ‘pure’, which is a different class from ‘extra virgin’. ‘Pure’ olive oil will make a plenty tasty mayo. If you mean light as in pale colored, you can make a very tasty mayo with pale colored ‘pure’ olive oil. It’s what I use along with lemon juice, egg yolks, and salt, and I’d be happy to eat a bowl of that mayo with a baguette, or maybe just with a spoon.

If you mean those olive oils marketed as ‘lite’, ‘light’ or ‘mild tasting’, I have severe misgivings about their ability to be tasty under any circumstances.

8

Following my wife’s instructions, I’ve been making it in a blender and it’s great. Never had it not work. We’re making mayo because all the commercial brands we can find have sugar in them:

No-carb Mayo

2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
1 tbl mustard (I use yellow but you can use Djon)
grind of black pepper (careful, I like pepper but I only use a tiny bit)
pinch of salt (you can experiment. I like mine salty)
juice of 1 lemon (I use around 4-6 tbs bottled. I like it a bit tart)
2 cups oil.
Here’s the exact recipe and then the way I do it:

Put all ingredients except oil in blender.
Run blender for 10-15 seconds.
While still running, dribble in 2 cups oil.
Taste and spice if necessary.

My way:

Ok, first, I use 1/2 cup of olive oil and 1 1/2 cups regular oil.
Light olive oil if I have it, regular if I don’t. If I have light,
sometimes I’ll do 1/4 cup light and 1/4 cup regular.

I put the 1/4 cup olive oil in the blender, THEN add the egg yolks and
whole egg, the salt, pepper, mustard and lemon juice. I blend for a
couple of minutes. It seems to make it frothier and thicker.
Then I take off the top and slowly pour in the 1 1/2 cups oil.
It’ll get kinda thick very quickly. I use a spatula to scrape the
sides of the blender while it’s running. It’s tricky. Be careful.
I’ve ruined many a spatula by accidentally hitting the blades.

I also often turn the blender off, stir with the spatula and
tart again. I just try to get the mayo from the edges into the
center so it’ll all be blended and not separated.

I blend for a couple of minutes, stopping, stirring, and starting,
scraping the sides. After you make it once or twice, you’ll be
comfortable.

Then I pour it into a container. Luckily I had one just the right
size. I use the spatula to get as much of the mayo out of the blender
as possible.

Put the lid on the container and put it in the fridge. As it cools
it’ll get even thicker.

9

Excellent, thank you. I can’t wait to try this. I didn’t want to keep buying the wrong kinds of oil and experimenting.

10

Dear Straight Dope,

After one year of culinary studies, I haven’t had an emulsion sauce break yet. I’m slowly beginning to feel like a freak, or worry that the grand spectacular break is going to happen on some occasion where it’s impossible to fix. And we make hollandaise directly on the stovetop as well.

One of the reasons why food processor or blender mayos may break is that there isn’t enough liquid for the knives to work on, so it doesn’t get blended well enough. I believe in room-temp ingredients, a wire whisk and a generous dollop of Dijon mustard.

Now cake batters, that’s a different kettle. I always skip recipes beginning with “Cream butter and sugar” because they’re a lot of work and invariably break when I add the eggs. Oh well, each to their own weakness.

11

I’ve never had a mayo break either. I use a stick blender in the straight sided quart sized beaker that came with the blender.

I usually just pour out some mustard seeds into the beaker, add a good bit of kosher salt, and a couple of grinds of black pepper (I really don’t give a rats ass if I wind up with black specks in the mayo). Then I add either some lemon juice or rice vinegar - a few splashes worth - and a whole egg (and a clove of garlic if I’m doing it). I blend these together until the mustard is good and crushed and then start to add the oil starting with one glug at a time. I keep adding until it is thick enough. I usually just use vegetable oil which lets the flavors of the mustard/lemon/vinegar/garlic come thorough with a few glugs of the strong flavored olive oil for a fuller flavor.

I’m apparently not much into measuring.

12

You can’t make hollandaise without egg yolk, but it’s not really an “eggy” sauce, by the time it gets to the plate.

I like to use what many would consider to be too much lemon juice. Creamy, buttery, lemony bliss. Whether it’s over steamed broccoli, poached salmon, or whatever… Sometimes I think you could serve a twice-baked turd under hollandaise sauce and still get points.

Even if your girffriend hates eggs and custard, and admits only a grudging tolerance for mayonnaise – I’ll wager she’s lay her immortal soul right at your feet if you feed her regularly on hollandaise sauce. Of course, both of your asses will spread out a bit, but that’s love. :smiley:

13

Poached salmon and hollandaise sounds awesome, but I’ve never poached anything. I think it’s the low temp that I know I can’t maintain without an electric skillet that’s prevented me from trying that technique. The twice-baked turd sounds more feasible since I do have an oven, though…

14

How on earth do you break a cake batter? I’ve never even heard of breaking a cake batter.

15

Keep making it. Eventually you get a “feel” for it, and you’ll never break it again, even if you try.

16

I’m tempted to try this out this weekend, but I’d like to know what I’m getting myself into so… … …
What does it mean to have a sauce break?

17

I want to make mayo or aioli with my beloved new immersion blender, but I was reading in a cookbook that it should keep for one day in the fridge. I can keep it longer than that, right?

18

It just stops “creaming” and gets all gross - the oily part separates from the rest.

19

As you mix the ingredients of a sauce together they will start to thicken as the oil and the other ingredients form an emulsion. If you mess up though (too much heat, combining ingredients too quickly, looking at the sauce wrong, whatever) the sauce will separate back into it’s basic parts and won’t come back together again*. I tried to make a béarnaise sauce a few months ago and after 10 minutes or so of solid whisking it looked great and I thought it was just about done. Suddenly it began to fall back apart into an oily mess. Instead of uniform delicious creaminess it turns into a nasty mess of egg particles suspended in clarified butter.

*I think you can fix mayo if the emulsion breaks. I’m not sure about things like béarnaise or hollandaise. I wasn’t able to fix mine anyway.

20

Did your recipe have mustard in it? If you put a little mustard in it the lecithin will prevent it from separating up to a week according to Alton Brown.