Cook and Drink

Over the years we wrote about a range of sauces, from very classic Béchamel to intriguing sauces like Kimizu and Cameline. But for some reason we never wrote about mayonnaise!
The average Dutch person consumes some 2.2 kilo of mayonnaise per year, same for the US. These figures are based on mayonnaise produced by companies like Hellmann, Kraft, Heinz and many others. They all claim to produce ‘real mayonnaise’.

The historical back ground of mayonnaise is full of anecdotes as you would expect. Its origin could be a sauce  from from Bayon (France, Bayonaise), or from Mahón (Spain, Mahónaise) or perhaps it goes back to aioli (another sauce we need to write about!).

In 1828 Antonin Carême published a recipe for magnonaisse in his book Le Cuisinier Parisien, ou l’Art de la Cuisine Française au Dix-Neuvième Siècle. He describes three methods for making the sauce. The first combines two egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, oil (from Aix en Provence), salt and white pepper. Interestingly he suggests making the sauce in a terrine on crushed ice. He also describes what to do if the sauce splits: put a spoonful of cold béchamel with an egg yolk in a bowl, plus a spoonful of the magnonnaise (with the wooden spoon), and you stir this mixture vigorously, which becomes smooth and velvety. You mix in part, the magnonnaise, which by this work becomes again what it was at first.

Mayonnaise is an emulsified combination of egg yolk, oil, vinegar, salt and white pepper. Adding a teaspoon of mustard kickstarts the emulsification. The recipe below is for a neutral mayonnaise. It is velvety, soft and creamy with a subtle, pure flavour. It’s easy to adjust to your taste or to the dish you want to use it for.

We use a hand (immersion) blender to make our mayonnaise. The cup must be slightly larger than the head of the blender. For some reason you have to use a whole egg. We tried it with egg yolk only, which didn’t work.

What You Need

• 1 organic Egg
• 1,5 teaspoon of Mustard
• 3 teaspoons of White Wine Vinegar
• pinch of Salt
• 300 ml Oil, for instance Rapeseed Oil or Canola Oil
• White Pepper

What You Do

1. All ingredients must be at room temperature
2. Add egg, mustard, white wine vinegar and salt to the cup
3. Gentle pour the oil on top
4. Lower the blender into the cup
5. Place the head of the blender against the bottom of the cup
6. Start at the bottom on medium speed
7. Move the blender upwards, very slowly, this may take 30 – 60 seconds
8. You may want to increase the speed, going upwards
9. When ready, put the mayonnaise to a bowl and transfer to the refrigerator
10. The mayonnaise will last for 3 – 7 days, provided you use fresh ingredients and you store it at 4 °C (40 °F) or lower. However we suggest eating it within one or two days, because it’s so very tasty!

PS

Hellmann’s original mayonnaise also contains water, sugar, flavourings, paprika extract and antioxidant; Heinz Seriously Good Mayonnaise also contains water, sugar and spice. Kraft’s Real Mayo also contains water, sugar, dried garlic, dried onion, paprika and natural flavor. If you want real mayonnaise, simply make your own!