Here’s the deal with mayonnaise: it should not be shelf stable at room temperature. I stare out at a landscape painted gloppy white with Hellman’s, with Best Foods, with — *shudder* — Miracle Whip, and I wonder not at all why I’ve passed on the mayo for most of my life.
Mayonnaise is a raw egg emulsion. Raw. Egg. Emulsion. Nothing about those three words implies that processing it such that it can live next to the tinned beans is in any way okay. And whatever process gets used to make it okay, I imagine, must be the same one that drains it of all its joy and savor.
Mayonnaise is one of the classic French sauces, people. It should taste better than this.
And it can. Making it at home takes about ten minutes in total. You can flavor it how you want. And once you eat the real thing, you’ll never, ever want to go back.
This is my favorite variation:
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1 Egg (fresh as you can manage — this is a raw-egg kind of deal)
1 Clove of Garlic, crushed and minced
1/2 tsp Dried Tarragon
Juice of Half a Lemon
Dash of Hot Sauce (it brightens the flavor)
Pepper
Salt
To a four-cup Pyrex, add the egg, garlic, tarragon, pepper, and a little salt, and whip on high with an electric beater. While you’re whipping, very slowly drizzle in the oil, allowing time between each drizzle for it to fully incorporate. By the time you’ve incorporated about half the oil, you should notice the mayonnaise thickening. By the time it’s all in, you’ll find it has a slightly thicker consistency than what you find in a jar.
When all the oil has been incorporated, add the lemon juice and hot sauce, mix thoroughly, and then add more salt to taste. Cover, and refrigerate for at least two hours before serving to give the flavors time to gel.
Like I said, this is a raw egg emulsion. So while it will taste — like — a bazillion times better than the mass produced stuff, you may still want to skip it if you’re immunocompromised.
(I’ve offered a similar recipe before here. But this one is better!)
does the political implication of this recipe suggest that fresh thinking is better than what gets stored on a shelf in a jar?
I don’t know if I’d go that far. As a folklorist, my default position is to respect tradition.
does the political implication of this recipe suggest that fresh thinking is better than what gets stored on a shelf in a jar? http://www.twice-cooked.com/?p=3356#comment-9253
Classic Mayo uses wine vinegar rather than lemon juice, and only the yolk of the egg. Made with vinegar it will keep longer, and the stronger acid kills more potential pathogens.
Make sure the egg yolk is at room temperature at the start of the whipping. If you start with a pinch of salt and some of whichever acid you are using in with the egg yolk at the start of the whisking the result is more stable and less likely to separate. This is down to the electrostatic structures that hold the colloidal suspension together (ref Scientific American article around 1975)
Traditionally, mayonnaise also uses some mustard. But mostly I use mayonnaise as an accompaniment to artichokes, and for that purpose, I don’t much like the traditional flavor combination. Were I to choose a favorite recipe for traditional mayonnaise, it would probably be the one from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But I rarely have a reason to make it.
As to the order of ingredients and the stability of the emulsion, I’ve never really had a problem with adding the acid at the end. Perhaps it’s because we’ve always consumed the whole batch within a couple of days, and not given it time to separate. Though I’m inclined to attribute it to the electric beater.