The mayo that changed a mayo-hater’s mind

When I was a kid, I hated mayonnaise. I can remember the exact minute I decided on this. My best friend’s well-meaning vegetarian dad served us microwaved Tofurky franks on floppy wheat-like bread with a thick white layer of mayo gooshing out like frosting. I gagged…and then I didn’t eat mayo again for ten years.

Later I realized that a thin, thin layer of mayo was acceptable sandwich lubricant. (Anything that raises the fat content of a food is a GOOD THING.) Or you could dip asparagus spears in it, oh so lightly. But that was it. Licking mayo off your fingers? Ewwwwww!

This is the mayo that changed my mind.

I can’t take credit for this super-quick recipe. It’s from Serious Eats. Except that I never make anything the way the recipe says – oh, but that would be boring!

The entire reason why I went looking for a mayo recipe in the first place was because I was deleting vegetable- or canola-oil-based stuff from my fridge, so I used light olive oil instead. (The Collected Wisdom of the Internet says that it must be light olive oil, or else nastiness will ensue. I did not gainsay The Wisdom.) And I used apple cider vinegar instead of lemon juice because I almost never have lemons, but I am old frenemies with ACV and I’ve got a gallon of the stuff.

But it’s the technique that’s the thing, here. It’s like magic. No fiddly-to-clean food processor or long whisking sessions required: In fact, if you’ve ever read my blog before, you’d know that just wasn’t going to happen. But this method is nearly instantaneous. I don’t know which was more fun, watching egg and oil and mustard become mayo in the space of four seconds….

…Or licking it off my fingers as soon as it was done.

Mmmm. Mayo.

Never thought I’d say that.

Here’s the recipe I ended up with.

HOMEMADE MAYONNAISE

1 egg yolk
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard or mustard powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup light olive oil

Swirl together all ingredients except the oil together in a jar that is only slightly larger than the end of your immersion blender. (A jar from Bubbie’s pickles seems to work great; plus you have the pleasure of eating the pickles first.)

Pour in the oil and let rest for 15 seconds.

Place the head of the immersion blender in the jar, touching the bottom, and then blend, raising the blender slowly to make sure it all gets blended.

Original recipe from Serious Eats, including technique video.

 
If you find (like I did) that you can’t use up a whole batch of this within a reasonable amount of time, you can reduce the olive oil to 1/2 cup, while leaving everything else the same, to make a smaller batch.

Now I need to find a recipe that calls for a single egg white….