Homemade Mayonnaise

As you know if you read my other blog, I got to go see Julie and Julia today! This movie was great... take your mom, sister or girlfriends, and go!

It was kind of like when Sam left The Fast and the Furious and drove 80 miles an hour the whole way home - I just wanted to get home and cook! I can't wait to try Julia's Boeuf Bouorguignon, kind of her signature dish, but I didn't have 3+ hours tonight. However, I did want to try something so I thought, how about her homemade mayonnaise? I always see them making stuff like this on food network, and all the talk of how difficult it is to emulsify the mixture scared me away. But, Julia Child inspired me to try! (Another thing I didn't know was that she didn't start cooking till later in life - how cool is that to begin something new, perfect it and be such an authority on the subject? Never too late to learn - what an inspiration!)

Ingredients
Round-bottomed, 2½ to 3-quart glazed pottery, glass or stainless steel mixing bowl. Set it in a heavy casserole or saucepan to keep it from slipping.
3 egg yolks
Large wire whisk
1 tablespoon wine vinegar or lemon juice (more drops as needed)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dry or prepared mustard
1½ to 2¼ cups of olive oil, salad oil or a mixture of each. If the oil is cold, heat it to tepid; and if you are a novice, use the minimum amount
2 tablespoons boiling water

Directions
Warm the bowl in hot water; dry it. Add the egg yolks and beat for 1 to 2 minutes until they are thick and sticky.

Add the vinegar or lemon juice, salt and mustard. Beat for 30 seconds more.

The egg yolks are now ready to receive the oil. While it goes in, drop by drop, you must not stop beating until the sauce has thickened. A speed of 2 strokes per second is fast enough. You can switch hands or switch directions, as long as you beat constantly.

Add the drops of oil with a teaspoon, or rest the lip of the bottle on the edge of the bowl. Keep your eye on the oil rather than on the sauce. Stop pouring and continue beating every 10 seconds or so, to be sure the egg yolks are absorbing the oil.

After 1/3 to 1/2 cup of oil has been incorporated, the sauce will thicken into a very heavy cream and the crisis of potential curdling is over. The beating arm may rest a moment. Then, beat in the remaining oil by 1 to 2 tablespoon dollops, blending it thoroughly after each addition.

When the sauce becomes too thick and stiff, beat in drops of vinegar or lemon juice to thin it out. Then continue with the oil.
Beat the boiling water into the sauce. This is an anti-curdling insurance. Season to taste.

If the sauce is not used immediately, scrape it into a small bowl and cover it tightly so a skin will not form on its surface.

YAY!! Success - it worked! And it does taste incredible compared to store-bought. (And I always love store bought as well - pass the mayo). Again, this is NOT a health-food blog. :)



Julia Child’s tips for homemade mayonnaise:
Room Temperature: Have all ingredients at room temperature. If they aren’t, warm the mixing bowl in hot water to take the chill off the egg yolks; heat the oil to tepid if it is cold.

Egg Yolks: Always beat the yolks for a minute or two before adding anything to them. When they are thick and sticky, they are ready to absorb the oil.

Adding The Oil: The oil must be added very slowly at first, in droplets, until the emulsion process begins and the sauce thickens into a heavy cream. Then, the oil may be incorporated more rapidly.

Proportions: The maximum amount of oil one large egg yolk can absorb is six ounces, or ¾ cup. When this maximum is exceeded, the binding properties of the egg yolks break down, and the sauce thins out or curdles. If you have never made mayonnaise before, it is safest not to exceed ½ cup of oil per egg yolk



I'm so proud of this!! Look how awesome!!



Making this leads me to a question for my fellow cooks and blog readers... what do you think constitutes "homemade"? Generally, I guess I think anything in a cookbook or on Food Network counts. But I just got done reading an article on how Julia Child-style cooking is gone in place of "30 Minute Meal"-type recipes. Instead of laboring in the kitchen over a truly homemade creation, today's cooks use canned tomatoes and pre-made ravioli when they cook.

I can see both sides. I think with the 40+ hour workweeks many women are engaged in, even a 30 minute meal is an accomplishment. You are still trying to make healthy non-processed food for your family and spending time in the kitchen, around the table, and cleaning up together. That's a lot different than carry-out regardless of if you used canned tomatoes or not.

However, I can see the argument that making bread from dough and butter instead of the frozen pie crusts is an art that could be lost in this generation. Opening a can of crushed tomatoes is NOT the same as picking out (or growing!) fresh tomatoes and simmering them. Using a certain amount of packaged food has become ok - even on Food Network. While I was whisking my homemade mayo (I can barely type my arm is so tired!!), I was thinking about the fact that years ago, women did make every part of their recipe by hand. Am I cheating most of the time?

So, what do you think? What can you get away with and still claim you made it homemade? Or, alternatively, what should we strive for as cooks to truly be an artist in the kitchen? Surely we don't need to churn our own butter?

Or do we?