Homemade Mayonnaise!!!

   Can you tell I'm pretty excited about homemade mayo? Look at my title! Look at all those exclamation marks!!! 

    Let me tell you though, my tale of mayo hasn't always been a happy one.....

       (.....insert depressing dream sequence music.....)

     Picture this with me, it's 2004.......(all of these ellipses are to help you stay in a dream sequence with me) :)  

     .....I borrowed a cookbook from the library that had a homemade mayonnaise recipe in it. When I first saw you could even make your own mayonnaise, I thought, "sounds fun! I'll give it a try!". I think I was interested because I was eating sugar-free/low carb at the time, and regular mayo has sugar added, and "low carb" mayo was expensive. But, oh, I was so young and foolish. And not to mention wildly inexperienced as a food handler (for real, the newly married me from 12 1/2 years ago would have rolled around on the floor laughing if someone told her she'd be writing a blog that was food and recipe centred!)! Anyway, I digress, back to the story......). There I stood in my kitchen, doing as I was told from the cookbook I'd found the mayo recipe in. All I needed to do was to put an egg yolk, vinegar & some salt in a bowl, and slowly drip in oil while I whisked! And voila! I would have mayonnaise, made by me! And wouldn't I just be bursting proud!

     Well, about 15 minutes later, after I'd whisked until my arm felt like jello, and dripped each drop of oil in slowly (seriously, it said one DROP at a time!), all I had to show was a bowl of pretty gross looking, separated, curdle-y looking nastiness! And I had no internet at home, so I couldn't just quickly look up "how to fix ruined homemade mayonnaise!".

     Dream sequence date transition music.....

     It's now 2006, and I have a new recipe for mayonnaise that says if I use a hand mixer, the mayo will work out because it will be a steady beating, which is important for the emulsification process. You still need to put the oil in one drop at a time, but I thought, "well, at least the other hand won't be whisking, so it shouldn't be as hard?"

     I was wrong. Holding a hand mixer for 10 strait minutes IS hard, and my hand mixer was very overheated, and the mayo still didn't work out!!! 

     Dream sequence date transition music.....

     Now it's 2011 (ish?), and I see a recipe for homemade mayo that says using a blender will do the trick! Apparently, hand whisking, and using a hand mixer doesn't whip fast enough. And for the egg and oil to properly emulsify. It has to happen slowly, but fully at each drop of oil, and that can only happen if it's being whipped fast enough! (hand slapped to forehead!).

     Well, I tried it. Long story short: it failed. 

     I was a homemade mayo failure. 

     I saw some time after, that using a food processor worked great, but after all the failures I'd had, I wasn't willing to try. Plus, I didn't own a food processor with the opening in the top to add food as it's whirling, and that was an important part of making mayo in said food processor. I wasn't about to go out and buy a new food processor either, just to attempt making mayo again!

      Dream sequence date transition music.....

      Here we are, it's 2015, and I'm standing in a second hand store in Tweed, looking at a immersion blender thinking, "well, I have been thinking about getting one of these because making homemade "cream-of" soups would be easier if I could just use this instead of having to dump the soup out into the blender....?". 

      It was $5. So, I got it.
 
    And I was right, making "cream-of" soups is ridiculously easy with an immersion blender! And, not too long after getting the immersion blender, our regular blender broke, so I thought, "well, I sure am glad I bought the hand-held blender!". 

    Then one day....one magical day....I was on a blog, The healthy Foodie, looking at a recipe, and somehow (by way of some rabbit trail I often find myself on when I'm on a blog I like!), I stumbled on "Foolproof Homemade Paleo Mayo", and there was a picture of mayo in a jar, and an immersion blender. I thought, "whaaaaaaa? Foolproof? She's never met a fool like me! I gotta try it". 

     Dream sequence music changes to something triumphant and uplighting....

     It worked!!! People, I am here as a bonafide homemade mayo failure to tell you that this is the FOR REAL foolproof method of making mayo.

     I've made it with cold ingredients, room temperature ingredients, fresh eggs, old eggs, using lemon juice, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, pickle juice (which was amazing!!!-I used it to make tartar sauce for fish night!) adding dijon, adding yellow mustard, adding pepper, adding garlic powder, cayenne, rosemary, thyme-I've tried it so many ways, and this mayo hasn't failed me yet! 

     I wanted to make a video of making it though, because while talking to my Mom on the phone one day about how crazy easy it was to make this mayo, I could sense some skepticism. That and she wasn't sure what size jar to use, and I told her "well, I'll video tape me making it, and post it to YouTube for you!"

     So, here it is, in all it's glory! 

    I am so happy I'm making my own mayo that isn't a complete failure!

   Now, I eat paleo, and I believe in using healthy oil to make my mayonnaise. What is "healthy oil", well....quite frankly, I don't want to get into that right now.....I'm too happy about homemade mayo to argue about "healthy oil"! Now, I can tell you though that different oils produced different tastes. I use Extra Light Tasting Olive Oil because it has (duh) a light taste. I once used regular olive oil, and the mayo, although thick and lovely, was very olive oil-y tasting, and also kind of green in colour. Bleh. So, just keep that in mind when choosing an oil.

Homemade Mayonnaise
****Super important note!!!***
      You'll need a 16oz,(also called a Pint, or 500ml) wide mouth mason jar for this. Or, some immersion blenders come with a tall, wide mouth, cylinder shaped container that you can also use. The immersion blender needs to fit right in the container for this to work. 

Ingredients:

• 1 Whole egg
• 1 Cup light tasting olive oil, or oil of your choice
• 1 Tbsp vinegar, or lemon juice
• Pinch o' salt

  Something I add in regularly is dijon mustard, about 1 Tsp


Method:

1. Crack the egg into the jar, then add all the other ingredients, including any extras
2. Now, place the immersion blender carefully into the jar, over the yolk (you don't want to break the yolk), bringing the blender all the way to touch the bottom of the jar
3. Using the highest setting or button, begin to blend the mayo, but DO NOT pull it up from the bottom of the jar! You will see the mayo start to come together (or emulsify), and come creeping up the sides of the jar like mayo magic!
4. After most of the mixture is emulsified (this takes no time at all!), you can begin to move the blender up and down gently to draw the rest of the oil in that's been sitting on top
5. Now, you're done! 

   As you can see, my immersion blender is NOT fancy. Not even a little bit! But it works! So, incase you're thinking you need to go out and buy the best, most expensive immersion blender to make this work, you're thinking wrong! Heck, if you don't already own one, and you're in not a desperate hurry to make your own mayo, just keep checking into thrift shops to see if you can snag an immersion blender at a great price! I honestly think my mayonnaise tastes even better because the blender only cost me $5! : )
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   Ok, full disclosure, before I got this hand blender, I did manage to make ONE BATCH of homemade mayo using the whisking method. The recipe I used it in was for Shrimp Stuffed Tomatoes (which are so delicious!), but the effort to make the mayo was too much! I can be pretty lazy, ya know! Now, making those same shrimp stuffed tomatoes with this fast mayo? Game changer. Game. Changer.

    I had honestly gotten used to a no-mayo life. But , there were things I really wanted it for. Tartar sauce for fish nights, for example. Or to make a ranch dressing to eat with a pile of veggies as a bedtime snack. How about creamy coleslaw? Yes please. 

     It is a welcome addition to my life! And, my kids eat it too, although I've never told them it wasn't store bought. I feel like they'd be skeptical if they knew I made it? They are my worst critics. Anyway, maybe they wouldn't be skeptical? Either way, I find immense pleasure in knowing that they'll eat it! : )  

     Well,  that's it, I guess! 

     I'm happy to be here writing a post and sharing something new that I'm excited about! 

     I hope you had a great Monday!      
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