Mayonnaise

Posted on by Michiel and Jeen

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
  • 2 teaspoons 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, add white pepper
  10. Put the mayonnaise to a bowl and transfer to the refrigerator
  11. 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!

Mayonnaise ©cadwu made with oil, white wine vinegar, white pepper, one organic egg and mustard, using a (immersion) hand blender
Mayonnaise ©cadwu

27 thoughts on “Mayonnaise”

  2. i love homemade mayo, but have never made it. yet. it is like a whole other sauce from a commercial brand. a chef i used to work for always made her own and it was so rich and delicious.

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  4. In the US we call this a condiment, separate from a sauce, which maybe is because sauces are “pourable?” But in any case, great recipe. And I’m so intrigued by Cameline!

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  10. I’ve only tried using a stick blender to make mayo once and it was a disaster so I’ve been whisking by hand ever since. You make it sound so easy that I should give it another try. The only store-bought mayo I sometimes use is Kewpie to make sushi.

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  13. I personally cannot stand shop bought mayo, and also it is really NOT a healthy product let’s face it – probably even quite high on the list of processed foods. But if we eat it now and then I suppose it’s all right. So, yes, I make home made mayo – except when I do my cooking classes – slight though it may be there is always a risk of salmonella.

    Actually I have made mayonnaise with an immersion blender using only egg yolks instead of a whole egg and it turned out fine. When once it did not and caused me a lot of head scratching and puzzlement etc I decided that one reason might be that the eggs were too fresh. Seriously, I kid you not – fresh eggs are not good for pastry making or mayo. Fresh eggs make whisking egg whites a useless endeavour.
    Also, it would require at least two egg yolks instead of the soliatry one.
    I tend to use half extra virgin olive oil and half peanut/groundnut oil or sunflower oil. If making mayo by hand I use only extra virgin olive oil. It is a labour of love but the taste is … well … something else! And no, no vinegar in the hand made stuff. Just the oil and the egg yolks and salt at the end. At the very end a tiny amount of water to help stabilize it.

    My Romanian friend makes mayo using boiled eggs! I think she must add water and lemon juice to make it turn into a cream. I’ll have to ask for proper instruction.

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