Homemade mayo is easy. Homemade mayo tastes so much better than store bought. Homemade mayo is better for you. Homemade mayo is primal/paleo/low carb/all natural.
I read all these Paleo, Primal, Low Carb, All Natural, etc blogs and they all encourage you to make your own homemade mayo. With the warmer weather, I was feeling like some chicken salad and some pulled pork with cole slaw... I thought I'd make my own mayo and see how it goes. I have some culinary training - I can make an emulsion, right?
I searched my favorite primal/paleo blogs for recipes and other blogs for technique and set out to make my own mayo. I was a little wary, wondering if the taste would really be better, but I was confident that I could do it.
Well, four unsuccessful attempts later, I concede that maybe it's not so easy for all of us. The first attempt was made with bacon drippings from Health-Bent, in my mini food processor. I used the little holes in the top to drip the cool liquid bacon grease into my egg, mustard, and vinegar. Six minutes later, I had bowl full of something that looked like watered down cake batter. In the trash.
My second attempt was in a bowl with a whisk. Same recipe, different method, same results. Batch 2 in the trash.
After the second, I did a little more reading. Apparently, if it looks like your emulsion didn't properly form or breaks (probably because you'd added the oil too quickly), you can add another egg yolk and whisk it together until the emulsion comes together again and then start adding more oil.
Armed with some new information, I made attempt 3 in the blender, deciding to change the recipe to use a different type of oil. I used half olive oil and half coconut oil - I felt that the olive oil flavor would be too strong if I used all olive oil so I used half coconut, but I was concerned about the mayo solidifying too much once it was refridgerated. I put the oil mixture into a bottle streamer and tried again. Halfway through, I was so excited - I had a beautiful emulsion. It looked like yellow-ish mayo! I continued to drizzle in the rest of the oil and ... thin cake batter again. 86-ed that batch too. Damn!
I ran out of dijon. Ran out of cider vinegar. I have two eggs left and enough olive oil for one more attempt. I used some ground mustard seed for the fourth attempt, regular white vinegar, and the same oil mixture. I drizzled in the oil even slower this time, but at the halfway point, I was in trouble again. I added in my last egg yolk and whizzed and whizzed for about 2 minutes, to no avail. Strike four. UGH! ****!
Confession 4: I had everything already prepped for my cole slaw and my chicken salad (I was prepping food for several days) and had to go to the store to re-supply. I know it's a cop-out, but I just grabbed a jar of mayo while I was there and used that. I've armed myself with more information and I'm going to be trying the homemade mayo again soon.
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