Mayonnaise

"It is one of the best and most useful sauces in existence, but because it is not cooked at all the making of it seems to represent to the uninitiated something in the nature of magic, or at least a successful conjuring trick." Elizabeth David

I don't make a lot of mayonnaise, but I do make it from time to time. It's one of those things that seemed to be formidably difficult and surrounded by mystique, with pages of instructions - the one in Mastering the Art of French Cooking runs to almost four pages, as does Elizabeth David. However, when actually tried I found it to be pretty easy. There are heaps and heaps of recipes out there with Felicity Cloake, as ever, giving a neat summary. The recipe I use, however, is the one I first used and is by Simone Beck - co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but in her own book Simca's Cuisine. It's actually a bit more complicated than most of the recipes I have seen since but I stick to it, because at heart I'm a coward. It works, so why should I try something else? Here it is:

MAYONNAISE CLASSIQUE A MA FACON (CLASSIC MAYONNAISE MY WAY)

2 egg yolks, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 3/4 to 1 1/2 cups oil, 1 to 2 tablespoons wine vinegar, lemon juice or water, salt, black pepper, freshly ground, 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh chives, chervil and parsley, minced (optional)

Put the egg yolks and mustard in a warm bowl and mix with a whisk. Then put the bowl over boiling water and continue to beat for 8 or 9 seconds to lightly poach the egg yolks with the mustard, you will feel a slight difference in the composition - it will be smooth and a little sticky.

Remove from the steam and beat in the oil, first a teaspoonful at a time. When the mixture becomes creamy, add more oil, a little at a time, until you have used about 3/4 cup oil and you can see that the mayonnaise is saturated. It is then necessary to give it the capacity to absorb more oil; add 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of boiling vinegar, lemon juice or water. When you see the mayonnaise become clearer and creamier, add the remaining oil, beating constantly. Then season well with salt, pepper, and, if you wish, the herbs.

I generally don't add the herbs unless I am using the mayonnaise for something that would benefit from this. Yes it does sound a bit complicated - that initial warming of the egg yolks over boiling water and the addition of boiling lemon juice. Now I have a small Turkish coffee maker thing that I boil the lemon juice in, but you might not. And I usually do it with lemon juice but it would be easier to add water. And if you want the lemon flavour you can squeeze in the lemon juice at the end.

And there seems to be a scientific reason for adding that boiled lemon juice halfway:

"an egg yolk thinned out by the addition of lemon juice, vinegar or water offers little resistance to the movement of an oil drop, and the drop can move out of the way of a whisk. But oil drops in a thicker undiluted yolk move more slowly, so each drop can be trapped and battered into bits by the whisk and the local areas of the yolk that whisking propels at high velocity." Harold McGee

I did look at a several different recipes and although they were all slightly different there were several commonalities and several common debating points - some of which were new to me.

• Place your bowl on a damp tea towel to stop it sliding around as you whisk. Not that I have ever had a problem with the bowl sliding around

• Keep everything warm. Cold seems to be death to the whole process. Lots of my authorities add the boiling water but not all. And some do the whole process in a bowl over simmering water. Don't know that that is necessary but they all seem to agree that warm is good.

• Oil - this is a big arguing point. Perhaps the majority seem to think that olive oil is too overpowering. I do use olive oil, though looking at the recipe I use I now see that she just says 'oil'. Maybe I took my lead from Elizabeth David who is very firm on using olive oil:

"Groundnut oil makes quite passable mayonnaise and could certainly be used for practising, but as it is absolutely devoid of taste, it is necessary to add flavour in the form of a little extra lemon juice and perhaps mustard." Elizabeth David

Mind you even she does recommend a 'light' flavoured olive oil. The rest suggest other oils such as groundnut (is that peanut?), sunflower, or rapeseed, but really I guess you could use anything. I think I saw some pictures of avocado oil. Or you could have a mix of a flavourless oil and some olive oil. I might try that next time because the olive oil flavour is certainly a bit dominant in mine. As is the mustard I have to admit.

• Easy does it. That is you start out by adding the oil very slowly, though how slowly varies a bit - drop by drop, teaspoon by teaspoon, gradually ... It's very important though.

"However stupid it may sound, the key to a successful mayonnaise is making sure each drop of oil is thoroughly whisked in before adding the next drop. " Delia Smith

Mind you it can be tricky to do this. Bear in mind that you are probably whisking with your right hand and pouring with your left - and it can be very tricky to control the flow. Because I have often measured it into a measuring cup I use that, but, frustratingly, the pouring lip is on the wrong side if you are pouring with your left hand. I don't think I have ever managed the drop by drop, but I do try to be as slow as possible. According to Elizabeth David:

"It is an interesting point that the Spaniards are the only people who, so far as I know, have a special and traditional utensil for pouring the oil for mayonnaise."

She describes it as a teapot shaped can with a long spout, but you would have to wonder why their special implement has not made it into our specialist cook shops - or Aldi even if it's so good. It certainly would help because even if your oil is in a jug, it is still difficult to control the flow. Not all jugs pour easily. The Spaniards, by the way, are sometimes credited with the invention of mayonnaise, which is clouded in mystery and legend.

• When it all goes wrong. And it will, at least once. For if you add too much oil it will split. And it is hard to tell when you have added too much oil. Nobody is really very precise about this. They all agree on what to do. Put another egg yolk in a warm bowl and gradually beat in your split sauce and all will be well.

So don't be daunted - it's one of those 'easier than you think' things that Yotam Ottolenghi was going on about in his Simple book. Nigella puts it nicely:

"My mother used to make mayonnaise weekly, twice weekly; we children would help. I had no idea it was meant to be difficult, or that it was thought to be such a nerve-racking ordeal. Then someone asked how I managed to be so breezy about it, how I stopped it from curdling. From then on, I scarcely made a mayonnaise which didn't split. It's not surprising: when confidence is undermined or ruptured, it can be difficult to do the simplest things, or to take any enjoyment even in trying." Nigella Lawson

• By hand or in the mixer? Again, opinion is divided here. Even Elizabeth David - the ultimate purist you would think seems to suggest that you can make a perfectly acceptable mayonnaise in a liquidiser. Although she does prefer to do it by hand.

"I do not care, unless I am in a great hurry, to let it [electric mixer] deprive me of the pleasure and satisfaction to be obtained from sitting down quietly with bowl and spoon, eggs and oil, to the peaceful kitchen task of concocting the beautiful shining golden ointment which is mayonnaise." Elizabeth David

Magic you see. And an enormous sense of achievement and satisfaction. That's what I get from the process anyway.

Curiously it's Nigella, whom you would think would be most into labour saving, is the most vehement in defence of doing it by hand:

"Please, whatever you do, don't use a food processor: if you do, your finished product tastes just like the gluey bought stuff. And then, hell, you might as well just go out and buy it." Nigella Lawson

But if you do want to make it in a mixer, and several thought it a good idea if in a hurry, then go to Delia's Quick Mayonnaise for a how to recipe. She also has a recipe called Almost Mayonnaise which doesn't use oil at all, or raw egg yolks either. It's an emulsion of cooked egg yolks and fromage frais - which, unfortunately, is very difficult to obtain here, though you can make it yourself. (another time) Incidentally the Paleo people seem to be OK with mayonnaise, but not the vegans. There are vegan versions, but they can't really be mayonnaise without eggs can they?

So why should you bother? These days you can probably get perfectly acceptable, organic, free-range and 'pure' versions in the shops and I think Nigella in her later books does use it, and certainly various other chefs give it an OK if you are in a hurry. But really they all prefer hand-made. Why ranges from the snobby:

"you should be able to make it by hand as part of your general mastery of the egg yolk." Mastering the Art of French Cooking

- to taste.

"Commercially produced mayonnaise bears about as much resemblance to the homemade sauce of the same name as instant coffee does to a single-estate espresso pre-treated by civet cats. It's like an oven chip, or a jar of pesto – perfectly acceptable when needs must, as long as no one's pretending it's anything like the real thing." Felicity Cloake

And I would add to that, the magic and huge satisfaction of a sense of achievement that I rarely achieve in my life.

So now you have your mayonnaise what do you do with it? Well for starters, you can add other things and make something new - aioli, sauce tartare, salsa verde ... Originally, so one theory goes, it, like spices and other sauces was used to disguise a gone off taste.

"One of the reasons for mayonnaise’s early popularity was that it served to disguise flaws in the ingredients it coated — potatoes past their due date, flabby cabbage, tuna that was less than pristine. David Merritt Johns

I don't think I really buy this because it doesn't really have a strong flavour - unless you make it with olive oil, and even that is not so strong to hide food that's gone off. I think it's more likely that it is the perfect partner to a whole lot of fairly bland foods, such as chicken in sandwiches and potato salad.

“The magic that sets mayonnaise above Coke and Heinz is that mayo is a perfect flavor carrier.” Scott Jones

Yes mayo - for that is a quote from an American. In America it is ubiquitous.

"How do you think “Hold the mayo” became a saying? There was always mayo, and if you were some kind of deviant who didn’t want it, you had to say so out loud." Sandy Hingston - Philadelphia Magazine

Well that quote is from an article that caused quite a stir and which maintained that the millennials were killing the mayonnaise industry. Apparently they just don't like it.

"It’s too basic for contemporary tastes — pale and insipid and not nearly exotic enough for our era of globalization. Good ol’ mayo has become the Taylor Swift of condiments." Sandy Hingston - Philadelphia Magazine

Not that I quite understand the reference to Taylor Swift - isn't she massively popular, or has her time in the sun passed? The writer does note though that the millennials do indeed like 'mayo' - they just add garlic and call it aioli.

I will finish with a sort of non sequitur. Whilst looking for suitable quotations I found this:

"I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise'".

Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan was one of my favourite authors. He was poetic, very wry, very laid back humorous and yet sad. His books were about nothing and everything at the same time, so I was intrigued. Now I don't have all his books on my shelves. I handed them over to my son who also loves him, so I couldn't check whether he achieved the aim of finishing a book with the word 'mayonnaise'. So I googled it and found that the quote is actually from his novel Trout Fishing in America, from one of his characters

"The final chapter of the novel is called ‘The Mayonnaise Chapter’ and it has a prelude explaining Brautigan’s reasons for choosing the title. He talks of communication, [ very indirectly (ed.)] and the final incorrect spelling of mayonnaise suggests the nuanced nature of miscommunication and unfulfilled ambitions. It is a small and strange way to end the novel." Ellie Stewart

And here is that last chapter - it's very brief.

"The Mayonnaise Chapter Feb 3-1952 Dearest Florence and Harv. I just heard from Edith about the passing of Mr. Good. Our heart goes out to you in deepest sympathy Gods will be done. He has lived a good long life and he has gone to a better place. You were expecting it and it was nice you could see him yesterday even if he did not know you. You have our prayers and love and we will see you soon. God bless you both. Love Mother and Nancy. P.S. Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonaise."

I just love that, though I could not tell you why. Richard Brautigan killed himself in 1984. He was a sad man, at times schizophrenic, depressed and alcoholic, so perhaps his end was inevitable. His books though were curiously optimistic in spite of the melancholy.

Reading Nigella's How to Eat, by the way, is what inspired me to write this particular post - in particular her comments about losing confidence when difficulties are pointed out.