Pro-Pantry #2: Nate Goes Dogg-Wild About Mayonnaise

 Man, 'naise a lot of things you can do with mayonnaise!

Greetings, Earthlings!  I was working on three different projects about mayo recently, and they sort of grew together into one really large article!  So I decided to morph it into another entry into the Professional Pantry series, where we go though ingredients we need in our lives.  

For us, today, that ingredient is mayonnaise.  We all know it, we all use it, but how many of us truly understand it?  Named after the Spanish city of Mahon, the capital of the mediterranean island Menorca, this oil-and-egg dressing serves as one of the most versatile condiments ever conceived of.  It's a salad dressing, a sandwich-moistener, a barbecue-chicken-enricher, and a broiled mussel topper.  It's the basis for tartar sauce, thousand island, ranch, comeback sauce, blue cheese ]dressing, French onion dip, and the pink stuff they put on spicy tuna rolls.  And, you can't make southern potato salad, devilled eggs, or pimiento cheese without it.  

Now, in the Pro-Pantry series, our goal is to highlight ingredients we love, but think of this as an expanded Pro-Pantry.  Sure, I'm gonna show you the light about which mayos are the best, but we are also going to discuss how to make mayonnaise, as well!

Part 1: Pro-Pantry Featured Ingredient:  Kewpie Mayonnaise

You know how some ingredients are kinda culty?  Certain ingredients just tend to get chef grroupies.  Asian ingredients, in particular.  Every chef has their little ingredients that they love to sneak into stuff.  Most of us, hell, most of everybody is known for their predilection for Sriracha, AKA 'Rooster Sauce.'  That ketchup-y little hot sauce is in every restaurant kitchen in America, whether or NOT they serve Asian food.  But it goes a lot deeper than that.  I've been vocal lately about my love of kombu from Hokkaido.  {I've got my Korean soy sauce.  -js}  But among professionals, there is one Asian-store secret weapon that many of us lean on, and it's not always obvious in the final dish.  That sauce is the unstoppable, unbeatable Kewpie Mayonnaise (see photo at top).

Before I achieved enlightenment, I mostly considered prepared mayonnaise a convenience product.  I was a big Hellman's fan back up north.  When I came south, I quickly switched my allegiance to Duke's.  But still, mayo was just something to spread on a burger or a sandwich, or make a traditional American macaroni salad or something.  

However, during my time at the Woodlands, I joined the cult of Kewpie.

-It's a 'secret ingredient' of mine, finding its way into many, many dishes.
-The entire line of sauces is exceptional (try the roasted sesame dressing!)
-The rich and clean flavor profile comes from all yolks (no whites) and rice vinegar.
-The emulsion is incredibly stable, meaning it takes additions well.
-This makes it an excellent flavor-delivery system.  

Here's just a few ideas for add-ins: Mix it with yuzu kosho (salted, fermented yuzu rind paste) at a 2:1 ratio for an acidic, saline, rich and bracing condiment.  Or, mix it with your favorite hot sauce at an 8:1 ratio, for a great spicy mayonnaise.  You don't have to get too fancy, this stuff is amazing!

Tarver King used to puree it with roasted black olives and use that as a dressing for potato salad!  Wrap your mind around that!

Now, it is about 4 times more expensive than regular mayonnaise.  You'll find yourself tempted to use it in everything, but you're not going to want to go that way for your 4-gallon batch of coleslaw.  (I mean, I use it at home for everything, but I don't think Mrs. Dogg knows how expensive it is yet.)

I mean, like Jesse likes to remind me I said that one time, "Screw your economics, I want the good stuff!"

But rest assured, Earthlings.  Sure, the stuff tastes so good you'll think it's from another planet.  (Jesse calls it Japanese Space Mayonnaise.)  But the pointy-headed Mayonnaise Baby comes in peace.  He just wants to take your cooking to the next level.

Part 2: How to make homemade mayonnaise

Yeah, Kewpie is good.  And if I had a recipe for it, I don't think I'd share it.  But sadly, I don't.  Jesse, Tarver King, and I have tried to work it out, but we've never been able to quite capture it's virtues.  However, having said that, there are still tons of reasons to keep housemade mayo around, not the least of which is that it's like 5% the price.  

But not everyone knows how to make it.  I actually once overheard this exchange:

Cook: We're out of mayonnaise.
Chef: So make some.
Cook: You can't just make mayonnaise.

Man, cooks are dummies sometimes.  Yes, you can just make mayonnaise.  It's not even that difficult.  Let's get into this.

Now, growing up in a family of excellent cooks, we rarely made mayonnaise.  At the restaurant where my dad worked, where they used it by the gallon, they bought it by the gallon (keeping up with that would be a huge pain.) The only reason I make it in my home kitchen (apart from the fact that I'm a giant food nerd) is that I try to keep to a keto diet, and you can't buy a decent keto-friendly mayo.  

Personally, I can count on one hand the number of restaurants I know of that  make it themselves.  And to be clear, it doesn't make you a culinary superhero, or even necessarily better than your competitors.  It certainly doesn't impress me or any other chefs I know, and it down-right pisses us off when it's not as good as Dukes.  If you can't beat it, buy it.  (See Heinz ketchup.)  

It's a time thing.  Chefs need their meatballs portioned, and home cooks are busy wrangling the kids.  You think that little snot-rocket cares if the mayo is homemade?  No!  He just wants his sandwich.

That being said, I admit, making mayonnaise is magical!  I still remember one of my first times dabbling in this culinary wizardry.  I was introduced to a Julia Child and Jaques Pepin cookbook by the first French-trained culinary badass I had ever worked for.  Not only was this one of my first cookbooks, it was a great place to start.   That pair really spoke to me.  I was initially drawn to the homemade mayonnaise because it didn't seem scary.  I thought 'Hell, I can do that!'  I had to try it.  I went out, bought some ingredients and started whisking, finding simple success.  Then I got out my mom's crappy food processor and made one in there too! 

Why? It's a great feeling, finding out you can accomplish something you never really thought was possible. If you've never done it, do it at least once in your life, do it!  Hell, even make it a science experiment with the kids, or buzz a batch up and make kick ass BLT's from those tomatoes you've been coddling the last 6 weeks.  You might even impress a young lady (or gentleman, if that's your thing). 

Is it more delicious?  That’s debatable, but It’s quite satisfying if you make it  That matters, because your emotions have a profound effect on your cooking, and perception of taste. If it breaks, or you make a huge mess and pisses you off, it's probably gonna taste like more  failure.  But if it's successful, you will have climbed the mountain, bested the dragon, walked on the moon.  Every little process you learn takes you closer to the ultimate goal of feeling like a complete cook.  Beyond that, it's a great gateway into how cold emulsions work.  Mayonnaise is a recipe in itself, sure, but many, many other recipes are mayonnaise-like, but with more expensive ingredients.  Better to learn the ropes with eggs and oil, two of the cheapest ingredients in the pantry.  

Will you make it all the time?  I'm guessing no, and I support your decision!  I still urge you to try it, just once in your life, to appreciate the wonders of emulsification!  And possibly appreciate what author Elizabeth David calls a “beautiful shining golden ointment."  What a gross & totally awesome turn of phrase!

Okay, Nerd Alert: What is Mayonnaise?

Lipid (fat) + aqueous/acidic element + emulsifier.

Let's break it down.

Lipids are fats.  For mayonnaise, you can't just use any fat.  Many fats are solid at room-temperature, and that won'd work.  So instead, you're limited to oils (which are fats that are liquid at room temp).  Vegetable oil and olive oil are the most popular choices.  Oil and water don't mix, you say?  Well that's where emulsifiers come in

The standard emulsifier is egg yolk.  Yolks are filled with surfactants: molecules with two ends, one of which readily binds with oil, and the other of which readily binds with water.  These emulsifiers is what performs the magic.  Egg yolk is, itself, a fatty substance dispersed in an aqueous substance.   All we need to do is stretch those surfactant molecules to hold a little more fat and water than they were designed for.  Luckily, that's no problem.  As you whisk them, you can shear in more and more oil, as long as you add a bit more water (which puts the 'aqua' in aqueous) as you go.  You can get an egg yolk to hold many, many times it's volume in oil, if you give it just a small amount of water.  However, mayonnaise is a dressing, and dressings are noted for their combining a fatty ingredient with an acidic ingredient.  This means that instead of water, you should use vinegar or lemon juice (or both!).  Mustard is also a great thing to add into mayonnaise before the emulsion stage.  It contains natural emulsifiers (not as many as egg yolk, but enough to make a difference) and has a flavor that goes along well with most mayonnaises.

The great Harold McGee said in his fsecond book, The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore: “There can be no doubt that the egg yolk is a prodigious emulsifier.”   If you don't know who he is, it is not our problem.

So back to McGee: trying to dispel the myth that mayonnaise is a difficult sauce to make and recipes need to be followed exactly, he wanted to demonstrate its adaptability, rather than its perceived rigid limitations.  He proved an astonishing fact that a single egg yolk (while impractical) can emulsify 100 cups of oil. That's 6 gallons, folks!  So don't worry too much about making a mistake.  And If you're as nerdy as we are, you should read that chapter just based on the title alone!  Chapter 8, Mayonnaise: Doing more with Lecithin. So goddamn great, that might be the best chapter title of all time.  {I vote for Salad: The Silent Killer, out of The Man Who Ate Everything, by Jeffrey Steingarten.  If you don't know that one, it's not my problem.  -JS}  This is one of those books that's a required reference material.  Reading it cover to cover is a big ask, but should be in your library.

Lots can go wrong, I admit.  Too much oil, and/or you don't whisk the sauce hard enough, the mayonnaise will separate. This happens because the quantity of surfactants is not sufficient to bind all the fat and water so the mixture will liquefy.  Another reason you run into trouble may be that the egg yolks are cold from the fridge, which severely stunts the power of the surfactants. Knowing this, it should be easier to learn to fix it when it curdles/separates.

How to Fix It if it Breaks

 Fixing anything outside of a kitchen, I'm worthless. But if you've got a broken mayonnaise, I'm your guy.  However, now that you understand how emulsions work, you’ll quickly learn I'm no prophet either.  I'm exposed for the fraud that I am.  Anyone can fix it. 

Put a few spoonfuls of the broken mayonnaise into a different bowl and, beating vigorously with a whisk, slowly add a little water or vinegar. As the mixture gradually thickens/emulsifies, add some more of the curdled mayonnaise, and repeat the same procedure.  Adding a water-based component, you can  re-establish  the  ratio with the oil and the emulsifiers.  Alternatively, you can re start the emulsion by adding more egg yolk.

So give it a whirl, at least once in your life. Then you decide..buy it or keep making it, the choice is yours!

Uncle Nate's Super Simple, Keto Friendly, Basic Bitch, 2-Minute Mayonnaise

The easiest way to a stable mayonnaise (dispersing the oil into billions of droplets), is a stick blender.  You add all of your ingredients except the oil into your bowl or cup, buzz them up, and then slowly drizzle the oil into the vortex.  It should be pretty bulletproof due to the mechanical shearing, but if it starts to get too tight and glossy, add a couple drops of water, just in case.  Or let it break, and fix it.  You don't really know how to make mayonnaise unless you've broken it and fixed it a couple of times.

60g (3 each) Large egg yolks

30g Distilled White vinegar 

10g Dijon Mustard

300g Avocado oil - or any neutral oil (Like I said, I've been health-kicking, but you don't have to feel compelled to follow my lead on that one.)

5g Salt (about a ½ teaspoon)  or to taste

Add yolk, vinegar and mustard to a cup that just fits the head of your immersion blender. Deli containers work perfectly. 

Pulse the ingredients smoothly.

Lower the blender to the bottom of the cup and then turn on.  Raise up just enough off the bottom so the mixture can flow, creating a vortex. Slowly blend until a thick emulsion is formed.

Use a spatula to fold in salt to taste.

Store in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Y= 2 cups

A note on stick blenders,  Don't buy the 200$, variety buy the 40$ variety.  They don't last any longer or work any bette.  Trust me I’ve tried lots of kinds and always wished I had bought the cheaper one that lasted the same amount of time.  It's just the cost of doing business i guess.  {You can trust him on this one.  If Nate ever says ANYTHING value-conscious, you can bet it's coming from the heart.  They guy doesn't rock off-brand anything.  Every sneaker is Adidas.  Every hoodie is 555-Soul.  Yeah, I'm breaking his balls.  -JS}  Unless you're in a restaurant and need to make 5 gallons of caesar or mayo you don't need anything larger, or heavier duty, than the hand held variety.  Hit me up for some recommendations if you need one. Or if you'd like some leveled-up mayonnaise techniques.