Day 21

So after I made my delicious loaf of bread, I tried to make my first sandwich in almost three weeks, and realized almost immediately that the mayonnaise in the fridge was off-limits. Which makes for, in my book at least, a pretty weak sandwich. And I wasn't going to tolerate that. I FINALLY made a loaf of bread. I was FINALLY going to get to make a sandwich. It was GOING to be a delicious sandwich. It was GOING to have mayo.

I found a recipe from my favorite Food Network personality and, because I trust Alton with my whole heart and soul, I dove right in.

And let me tell you, there was a lot of trust involved with this recipe. In further demonstration of my food ignorance, until last night I had never actually seen mayonnaise made before. And, while I knew that it was basically eggs and oil and vinegar, I never really thought about it until I saw the recipe. At which point I thought, Really? I'm just going to mix up some oil with an egg yolk and it's going to turn into mayonnaise and not just a big, greasy, liquidy mess? I was highly skeptical.

As per Alton's instructions, I whisked one egg yolk with 1/2 teaspoon fine salt, 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard, and 2 pinches sugar.

So far so good...

After that, you mix 2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice and 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar together in a separate measuring cup and then pour about half of it into the egg yolk mixture and whisk HARD until you get an emulsion.

Or, so I'm told. You're supposed to whisk until the mixture gets a little bit lighter and thicker, although I whisked for a good long time and didn't see much of a change. Eventually, I just thought, Well, hope that's good enough... and prayed I didn't totally screw it up.

And I didn't! To my complete surprise, as I dropped a few drops of oil into the mixture and continued to whisk hard, a mayonnaise-like substance actually began to form.

Whaaaat!?

So after the mixture starts looking like mayo, you can ease up a little and start pouring the oil in a thin, steady stream. Which is kind of a two-person job. If you don't have a second person, you can make it in the food processor, or, if you're like me and you don't have a second person and you don't realize until you're pretty much done that there was a much easier way to do this, I found that alternately adding the oil in small quantities and whisking worked just fine.

This was also the only place I differed with Alton. He says to use safflower or corn oil, but since I'm not sure if you can get either of those oils through stone-grinding (Rule 42) and I was too lazy to check, I went with olive oil. Olive oil will apparently make a darker mayonnaise with a distinct olive oil flavor, which, to me, is a total plus.

Anyway from there it's pretty easy - just slowly add half the oil, then the other half of the vinegar and lemon juice, then the other half of the oil (still slowly) and whisk until your arm falls off! Mayonnaise!

From start to finish, the whole project probably took about 20 minutes and, unlike ketchup, was not a pain in the ass at all. The recipe made enough mayo to last me longer than it will probably keep, which, according to Alton, is a week. Not gonna lie, I'll probably try and eat it for two. If I don't die, I'll report back with my findings.

The end result, by the way was fresh and delicious. I don't think I even knew what real mayo is supposed to taste like. I can tell already that it's going to blend with other ingredients like lemon and dill or roasted garlic way better than bottled mayo, which makes me nerdily excited. Aioli time!