Homemade Mayonnaise: Technique, Troubleshooting, Storage

[bloviatrix]

There are a million things I can worry about.  The joy from homemade mayo is so great I decided years ago that it was one thing I wasn't going to worry about.

Amen, sister.

You're preaching to the converted.

Believe me, once you start making homemade mayo, you'll find it's so good, it dispears in less than a week.

[Pickles]

Salmonella is carried on the outside of the eggshells, having been acquired from the hen's innards.

Namely the hen's oviduct. But the eggshell is a porous substance; air must pass through it in order to get to the developing embryo. There is one type of salmonella that enjoys getting inside the eggshell. Salmonella enteritidis.

In the Northeast, approximately one in 10,000 eggs may be internally contaminated. In other parts of the United States, contaminated eggs appear less common. Only a small number of hens seem to be infected at any given time, and an infected hen can lay many normal eggs while only occasionally laying an egg contaminated with the Salmonella bacterium.

More Eggciting Information Here

[budrichard]

I boil the eggs for 4-5 minutes, scrape out the contents into the Kitchenaid food processor, that contains a little lemon juice and white vinegar and hit the Start button.

I believe that's false mayo, almost like using hard boiled yolks for a fool proof concoction. Not the same flavour as raw yolks.

"I believe" is the incorrect method of determining if something is correct or wrong. Do a blind test and make Mayo with raw eggs and the method I out lined. You will not be able to tell the difference in a blind tasting. That is what I did to determine if the 4 minute boil which results in a runny yoke and partially solid white makes a Mayo that tastes the same as one made with raw eggs. -Dick

[jayt90]

Your method is worth trying, and I'll certainly do it next time. My reference to false mayo was from a faint memory of my mom's mayo recipes, probably from Joy of Cooking or Adele Davis, showing us how to make a fast 'false mayo' from hard boiled eggs in a blender.

[bleudauvergne]

Bux is right, they don't refrigerate eggs here, although suddenly once they get home there's a panic (by my French husband) if they don't go directly in the fridge - go figure...

[rascal]

Greetings y'all..

I made my own mayo for the first time tonight according to the eGCI lesson from Non-Stock Based Sauces. 1/2 lemon, 1 c organic EVOO, 2 cloves garlic, salt, 1 egg yolk. The texture was out of this world! The taste, for the most part, was good. However the lemon acididty cuts through the rest of the flavors like a knife! It's not too bad on other dishes (served with mussels and frites tonight). I was just wondering if anyone else had come across this same problem and found a solution. More oil? Less lemon? Sub some lemon juice for water? I'm thinking trying to source a somewhat less acidic lemon type might be worthwhile.

One other possibility that I've considered is that I don't really know what real mayo tastes like... but this was almost like a super-thick Caesar dressing.

I might also swap half the olive oil for some canola or such next time.

Thanks in advance for your help...

[Dave the Cook]

Welcome, Rascal! Congratulations on your first mayonnaise.*

You can vary the amount of lemon juice to suit your taste. I've seen recipes with no lemon juice at all, and some with as much as 2-1/2 tablespoons. The only requirement is that you have about one ounce (2T) total of water-based liquid for each cup of finished mayo. (No water = no emulsion; no emulsion = no mayonnaise.) So, as you suspected, substitute water for the missing juice, or maybe try a Meyer lemon. You can even try other acids, especially vinegars, which vary in their ability to both reveal themselves in the finished sauce, and in the ways they make that revealation.

Your impulse to substitute some of the EVOO is a good one. Mayonnaise made entirely with unrefined oil will break in short order. If you had any left over and put it in the refrigerator, you probably found that out already. That aside, you can vary the flavor by changing the proportion of EVOO to neutral oil. Keep the unrefined oil to less than 30% of the total, and the sauce will be stable.

* You didn't just make mayo -- by adding the garlic, you made aioli. Maybe that's why you got the Caesar reminiscence?

[bloviatrix]

You also might want to try substituting white wine vinegar for the lemon juice.

[rascal]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to try swapping out some lemon juice for water, and probably half the EVOO for canola.

bloviatrix (great handle btw), wouldn't white vinegar still have that acidic kick? The lemon flavor was part of the excessive taste but the acidity was just as much. A little too much "pucker" if you know what I mean.

It's been sitting out now for 16 hours or so and hasn't broken yet. I'm going to reuse it on another round of mussels tonight.

[M. Lucia]

I actually can't stand mayo, but I am from the south and it is requisite at all family gatherings (to accompany tomato aspic), so here is my grandmother's recipe:

1 egg, dashes salt, red pepper, dry mustard, paprika

Put in a small bowl

Slowly add 1/2 cup vegetable oil while whisking/beating

Add 1 tbl cider vinegar

Now add 1 cup vegetable oil while beating

Add 1 tbls fresh lemon juice

Taste add mustard, paprika, lemon juice, or vingar if needed

Put in container, sprinkle top with paprika

My grandmother actually specified Wesson brand oil

I don't know much about mayo but I know this has worked for ~100 years so...

[Dani Mc]

if you still need to rescue your current batch, a bit of salt will take out some of the lemon acid bitterness.

[jackal10]

Hmm...I wrote the original unit, and I like my mayo fairly sharp.

Especially for Aioli.

It also depends how acid is your lemon.

Yes, you can swap some of the lemon for water, but as Dave says, keep the proportion of water based liquid the same

It also depends on the taste of the EVOO. Full EVOO is often too flavoursome, so halving it with a mild salad oil works for me. Any oil that thickens as it gets cold will break mayo, which is why most mayo without additional stabilisers breaks when refrigerated. An acid mayo is stable at room temperature and should not be refrigerated.

Edited December 12, 2004 by jackal10 (log)

[bloviatrix]

The reason I suggested trying the vinegar is because it tends to have a different pH level of acidity from lemon juice (I believe lemon juice has a pH level of 2 and vinegar a level of 3, but vinegar woud vary by type). In otherwords, lemon juice is more acidic than vinegar.

Edit: added last sentence to clarify.

Edited December 13, 2004 by bloviatrix (log)

[culinary bear]

The reason I suggested trying the vinegar is because it tends to have a lower pH level of acidity than lemon juice (I believe lemon juice has a pH level of 2 and vinegar a level of 3, but vinegar woud vary by type).

←

*removes chef's toque*

*puts on safety goggles*

The pH of lemon juice is obviously variable, but tends to be around 2.3; the pH of white wine vinegar depends entirely on the brand, but would be around 2.7-3.0.

Since pH is a logarithmic scale, one whole pH 'point' represents a tenfold change in acidity, so you could (tenously!) assert that lemon juice, for the same volume, is 3-4 times more acidic than white wine vinegar.

That's actual acidity... Perceived acidity, to the individual's palate, is a very complex matter and would vary widely.

*injures self while removing goggles*

[RETREVR]

All science aside....Cider vinegar might be a better choice than white wine vinagar. Hell, white wine might be a better choice than vinegar at all.

You are lucky (or have a good olive oil) if you can make your aioli without getting a funky bitterness....(which is part of the reason to use lemon in the first place).

[Lexica]

Rice vinegar tastes a bit more delicate than white or white wine vinegar - the bottle says 4.1% acidity. I was a fluffy liberal arts major, tho', so I don't know what the actual pH is.

[culinary bear]

*ponders stealing a bottle of 6M hydroflouric acid for the purposes of mayonnaise research*

[rascal]

*ponders stealing a bottle of 6M hydroflouric acid for the purposes of mayonnaise research*

←

Might have a tough time with the mayo jar on that one

[Dave the Cook]

*ponders stealing a bottle of 6M hydroflouric acid for the purposes of mayonnaise research*

←

Might have a tough time with the mayo jar on that one

A glass jar would be fine, wouldn't it? It's the whisk you'd have to worry about.

[Marlene]

Your impulse to substitute some of the EVOO is a good one. Mayonnaise made entirely with unrefined oil will break in short order. If you had any left over and put it in the refrigerator, you probably found that out already. That aside, you can vary the flavor by changing the proportion of EVOO to neutral oil. Keep the unrefined oil to less than 30% of the total, and the sauce will be stable.

←

I can attest to this. When I make mayonnaise as the base to my Ceasar salad, I find using EVOO with the beaten eggs makes it break every time. I've started using half canola and half EVOO to make the base. I also use an electic hand mixer which seems to work well for me.

[rascal]

*ponders stealing a bottle of 6M hydroflouric acid for the purposes of mayonnaise research*

←

Might have a tough time with the mayo jar on that one

A glass jar would be fine, wouldn't it? It's the whisk you'd have to worry about.

←

HF acid dissolves glass IIRC and has to be stored in Teflon or the like.

[pam claughton]

I just took a cooking class recently and made mayo for the first time. We used rice wine vinegar and lemon and there was not a sharp lemon taste at all. In fact, I thought it was kind of bland, until we added the rest of our seasonings. We were making a remoulade sauce, so it went from bland to wow in seconds.

I'd give the rice wine vinegar a whirl.

If your mix breaks or you go too slow (like I did, I was afraid of breaking, and we were in a commercial kitchen with a super powered food processor that turned my mix into rubber), you can fix either mistake with a few drops of warm water.

:) Pam

[Dave the Cook]

HF acid dissolves glass IIRC and has to be stored in Teflon or the like.

Yikes. I didn't know that.

[maremosso]

We have only home made mayo "chez nous", as no one in the family can stand the ready made type.

There are all kinds of home made mayo recipes, and extra flavourings and ingredients can be added as you go.

But I would say that a good basic mayo would consist of 1 whole egg, whizzed for a few seconds, just to blend, in a blender with salt. pepper and 1 tablespoon lemon juice (or best quality white wine vinegar; here you can let your imagination go wild - terragon vinegar, cider vinegar, raspberry vinegar are all excellent substitutions).

Then, with top of blender open, drizzle in 1 cup (or 1 and a quarter cups) salad oil, and continue until your mayo reaches the right consistency.

That's it.

Don't use olive oil: keep that for another variation of your basic mayo, for example, when making Aioli.

With Aioli, you would also add garlic - as much as you can take.

P.S. Half a cup lemon juice for only 1 yolk is definitely too much!

[DanaT]

Hi all.

I'm a New Yorker so I don't cook much but I got the urge to make some homemade mayonnaise to go with my poached salmon. Its the second time I'm trying it and it tastes delicious but seems too runny-like a Creme Anglaise.

Is there a special trick to making THICK mayonnaise? Or is homemade mayonnaise naturally just thinner?

The recipe is 2 egg yolks, 1 whole egg, 1 tablespoon of mustard and 2 cups of olive oil. I added an extra egg yolk and its a bit thicker but not creamy mayonnaise. I hesitate to put another egg in there.

Any advice?