Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Homemade Mayonnaise


Last week at the Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays someone posted a recipe for homemade ketchup that inspired me to...*think* of making homemade ketchup. (The recipe looks a little too spice-intensive - I think my husband and I would love it, but the main consumer of ketchup in our house is our little one and I don't want to spend a lot of time and energy on a product that needs to be eaten within a week when no one in our family uses it that much.)

The post *did* inspire me to make homemade mayonnaise. I'm not the biggest fan, but my husband likes it and always includes it when making his sandwiches. We were coming to the end of our commercial supply and since I have taken a challenge to buy only local or organic food I was not looking forward to spending over $5 on a 16 ounce jar of the stuff. I made homemade mayonnaise for the first time last December to make the pimento cheese I served at my holiday party and it was fantastic and really very, very easy.

I modified a recipe from the lovely Sara Foster's Foster's Market Cookbook (her cafes are in Durham and Chapel Hill, NC and we go whenever we can) and here it is:

1 large egg
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups of canola or safflower oil

1. Place the egg, vinegar, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade and pulse to blend. With the motor running, add the mustard and garlic.
2. Add the oil in a slow, steady stream down the feed tube, with the motor running, until the mixture becomes thick and is the consistency of mayonnaise.

You can add all kinds of other herbs to dress it up like fresh basil and parsley, but it has plenty of flavor as is. We made egg salad yesterday from fresh eggs from our chickens and it was dreamy, absolutely the best I'd ever had in my life.

This post will be my contribution to this week's Fight Back Friday.

9 comments:

Angela said...

I don't have a food processer- do you think it would work in a blender?

Stacey said...

I've never seen a mayonnaise recipe that allows for a blender, *but* I know you can make it the truly old-fashioned way with a wire whisk and a great upper-body work-out!

Wonderworking Words said...

I make my own mayonnaise in a blender all the time. You just have to carefully & SLOWLY pour the oil into the eggs after they're well whipped, otherwise you'll break the emulsion.

Thanks for submitting this post to Fight Back Fridays.

You may also consider changing up the oils for a little variety and added health benefits (I use half warm coconut oil and half olive oil.)

Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade -- WonderWorking Words is my copywriting business!)

Angela said...

Thanks Foo, and Kristen. I think I'll try the blender...

Betsy said...

You can make it with a stick blender, too, right in the jar. Put the egg yolk in first, then everything but the oil, then the oil in last. Put the blender in down to the bottom and turn it on. Like magic!

Mary Ellen said...

Saw your post at Fight Back Fridays. Thanks for the recipe! I'd love to start making my own condiments.

Stacey said...

@Betsy- Thanks so much for the tip of using the "stick" blender. I got one from my mom a while back (and I didn't even know what to call it) and just use it to puree soups, but now I see that it can get more use - and make easy homemade mayonnaise even easier with less mess to clean up!

@Mary Ellen - Until I went to Kristen (aka Food Renegade)'s blog I really didn't think of making my own, but the mayonnaise really is SO much better than the commercially available stuff that I am becoming a serious fan. I'm craving more egg salad at the moment. :)

Angela said...

One more question- do you know how long this lasts in the refrigerator? I think it takes us months to go through a jar of mayo. I assume you would have to use this up within a week or so, no?

Stacey said...

We had the mayonnaise from the holiday party in December for at least a month. Again, I'd look to make egg salad, pimento cheese and other dishes that use a good amount of mayo to use this up more quickly than your Hellman's. You won't regret it. :)