I have tried to make home-made mayonnaise before, and the results were fine, but not great. I felt like I was missing something. Turns out, I was! The basics, I knew: emulsify egg with a portion of oil, salt and lemon juice to taste. What I was missing is that the oil you choose makes a HUGE difference, and...MUSTARD POWDER! Like wow. All the difference in the world.
So I used EVOO the first time. And that ended up being the source of my major complaint, in fact! It is just tooo heavy. And the mayo felt...oily. I wanted the lightly whipped mouthfeel of mayo and I got something a little more thick mousse like. I assumed that was just a side-effect of home-made mayo, but turns out if you use a high-oleic oil, like safflower or sunflower oil, avocado oil, or extra light olive oil in a pinch, it lightens the whole thing up.
The other was the mustard powder. I see now that some recipes call for dijon in the mayo, and I can't remember if I tried that on my last one. But I can say in this batch, the subtle effect of the mustard powder really balanced the mayo, and made it taste more like my favorite store-bought brand! A 1/2 tsp of salt and the juice of half a lemon and I have mayo I am thrilled to eat!
Now if I can figure out how to make it less messy. I use my emulsion blender and getting the mayo out of it and off of it is blech. And then the container it was blended in wasn't the one I was storing it in, so then I had a messy spatula and a messy blending cup, too, with a lot of wasted mayo in the process. Gotta get a wide mouth jar to do it in next time (all mine are in use right now), and plan to store it in what I make it in.
Anyhoot, that was a revelation, and now sharing the recipe here so I can refer to it later:
INGREDIENTS
Anyhoot, that was a revelation, and now sharing the recipe here so I can refer to it later:
INGREDIENTS
- 1 egg
- 1 cup safflower oil, avocado oil, or extra light olive oil
- 1/2-1 tsp white vinegar
- 1/2 tsp mustard powder
- 1/2 tsp salt, + to taste
- 1/2 lemon, juice of
DIRECTIONS
- Put egg, mustard powder, salt, lemon and the oil in jar.
- Using emulsion blender, push blender to the bottom of the jar and begin blending. Once you see mayo begin to form, draw upward slowly, letting oil slip down the sides to incorporate a little at a time.
- Remove blender and commence messy job of trying to extract the mayo from all around the tines and exterior of blender. Taste, and add more lemon or salt as you wish, blending gently with a spoon.
- Close lid, refrigerate to let it all blend and cool.
- Note you can do this in a blender, simply drizzling in the oil as you go. I don't have a blender, but this seems like a easy way to go.
Pro-tip: You can gently lift and plunge the blender, allowing a little bit of oil to blend in. Keep gently lifting and blending, not allowing too much of the oil to get underneath at a time. If too much oil tries to blend at once, sometimes you get a looser, less-thick result, so take your time.
