Making Mayonnaise
We ran out of mayonnaise this weekend, and Gwynie put a request in for me to do a homemade batch rather than buying it. We like the idea of knowing everything that goes into our food, and commercial versions of mayo have a long list of chemicals that stabilize the emulsion and prolong shelf life. Bleh! & Hello allergies! Mom used to make it all the time when we were little, I don't know whether it was unavailable in the store or just her Cordon Bleu Culinary School skills coming out. She whipped it together with her hand held immersion blender. The two things I remember clearly was how easy it looked and how much her recipe made- practically 2 or 3 cups of the stuff! Nowadays with an heightened awareness of salmonella/food poisoning I could never make that amount since it takes us ages to get thru a large jar. You prolly don't want to store it for more than a week tops, so I thought I would experiment with smaller volumes for 1 or 2 servings. Basically you need eggs, oil, acid and flavors. In general it's 1 -1 1/2 cups of oil for each egg, and that will make up to about 1 1/2 cups of mayo. I can get the cutest little quail eggs at our local Asian market, which allows me to used the same ratios but in miniature (ie for each quail egg use 1/3-1/2 cup of oil). A lot of recipes talk about dripping the oil in but with the immersion blender that's not necessary. If you can't get it to thicken, keep adding small amounts of oil. (I know- doesn't that seem counter intuitive to add more liquid to something that's runny? Trust me it works!) The immersion blender is what allows these smaller volumes to work. I suppose you could attempt with the whisk attachment in a bowl but this way you only use the blade attachment, and the bottle you store the mayo in anyway...
Ingredients
1 quail egg
1 quail egg yolk
1 Tbs vinegar (I used cornichon pickle juice)
1 tsp mustard
Salt, pepper & sugar to taste
reserve
1 Cup neutral oil (split into 3)
Method
Combine the ingredients in a small bottle using immersion blender.
Add 1/3 cup of oil, blend till mixture becomes opaque and oil is fully incorporated.
Mixture will be runny.
Add 1/3 cup of oil, blend till oil is fully incorporated.
Mixture will start to thicken.
Check flavor and adjust as you like.
Add 1/3 cup of oil, blend till oil is fully incorporated.
Mixture should be thick, glossy and hold it's shape.
Makes about 1 cup.
Voila homemade mayonnaise! If you're feeling super fancy you can add herbs/spices and call it aioli...