Candice Makes Mayonnaise

Candice with her finished product!

A funny thing keeps happening to Robbie ... he goes up the coast, goes out for a beer with his dad, and comes home with 1 to 3 meat trays. There's a raffle at the club his dad goes to, and somehow they always seem to win. Yep, hubbie of the definitely-vegetarian, daddy of the mostly-vegetarian, and he comes home with 15 rib-eyes (having left half of them with his parents). Hmmmmm......

So, what to do but invite around some meat-a-tarians to share his feast. Don't worry, this isn't a post about steak! It's a post about how one of our carnivorous friends made her very first batch of mayo ... ever.

Let's preface this by saying that 2 of the 3 cooking shows I watched on Saturday (I was home alone, and in complete chill-out mode) made fresh mayonnaise. I thought, this has to be a sign! I made a batch to go with my lunch that day, and you know what? It was as good as they all say it is.

Back to meat-fest ... while I'm busy preparing salads and putting away our market finds of the week, Candice whips up a beautiful mayo for us. Here's how she did it:

***********

Candice Makes Mayonnaise

makes 1 1/3 c


Ingredients
2 med free-range egg yolks, at room temperature
300 mL extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon (or 1 Tbs white wine vinegar, if you're out of lemons)
a pinch of dried garlic (or the tiniest ever amount of fresh, I'd think)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste

*As always, use organic ingredients when you can.

1. Put the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl and beat them with a whisk (or electric beaters - if you're not feeling energetic) for a few seconds to make them creamy-looking.

2. Now, this is the most crucial part - when you start making mayo, you have to put the oil in drop by drop as you whisk. You are going to think to yourself - "this is going to take forever!", but don't worry, you get to speed up the process later on. Drop ... by ... excruciating ... drop.

3. Drop by drop - remember!

4. At some point (probably around 100 mL of oil in or so ... ) your mayo will start to look creamy and mayo-like. When this happens, you've passed the critical stage and it's ok to add more oil at a time. Still keep it to a Tbs at a time or so, but it'll go faster.

5. By the time all the oil's been incorporated, it should look just like mayo. Whisk in the lemon juice, garlic, salt and sugar and taste it. Yum! Add more salt or lemon/vinegar if you need to.

6. Whatever you don't use you can store in the fridge for sandwiches or dipping or whatever! Just keep it for a few days though ... without preservatives it loses its freshness more quickly than store-bought.

OH NO! IT'S CURDLED!
It's ok, this is a common problem with mayo which occurs when too much oil is added too quickly at the beginning. If this happens to you, all is not lost. Put a fresh, room-temperature egg yolk into a new, clean dish and slowly (drop by drop) pour in your first batch. When that's incorporated, keep adding the oil just as you were initially doing, only more slowly (ha ha). Should be completely fine!

Now all we need is a bucket of hot chips ...

***********

How much did this cost?

We used all organic ingredients. The egg yolks were, say, $0.50 for 2 (as we saved the whites) and the 1/2 lemon was $0.35.  The oil was the expensive bit, at $3 ... and the rest was really negligible. So, let's say $3.90 for a large amount of mayo. Seriously, you might consider halving this recipe unless you're having a lot of people around. (We used it on salads and on veggie patties and still have heaps in the fridge.)

So, well done Candice! Let's see if you can pass this on, Jamie Oliver-style, on your trip overseas. I'm sure there's something yum to have with mayo in South Carolina!!

Amanda xx