Home Made Mayonnaise and the Potato Salad I put it in!

I decided I wanted to make homemade mayonnaise for the Potato Salad I was making. I am not a mayo fan most of the time. I have not found a jar mayo that I like. Restaurants sometimes nail it.  So MAYO! I thought maybe if I do it I might like it more? I attempted to make it from scratch... I am not gonna lie. It took me 4 tries to make it.... It is not easy. In Culinary school , classically trained Chefs learn to make mayonnaise by hand with a metal bowl and a whisk. I have a 6 inch plate and 14 screws in my right arm so I find whisking like a mad chef kind of painful. I used a blender.  Mayonnaise is an emulsion.  

The definition is kind of hard to break down so I am going to quote from my bible. The New Food Lover's Companion . This book is invaluable. It has no recipes. It is a collection of food definitions and referencing tools. I have read it from cover to cover. Remember I have not been to school, but I do not want to just know how to cook I want to know the science and the intellectual side of food like Alton Brown from the Food Network. I call him the P.h. D of the Culinary world. So anyway emulsion.

emulsion (ih-MUHL-shuhn) A mixture of one liquid with another with which it cannot normally combine smoothly --oil and water  being the classic example. Emulsifying is done by slowly (sometimes drop -by- drop) adding one ingredient to another while at the same time mixing rapidly. This disperses and suspends minute droplets of one liquid through the other. Emulsified mixtures are usually thick an satiny in texture. Mayonnaise (an uncooked combination of oil, egg yolks, and vinegar or lemon juice) and HOLLANDAISE (a cooked mixture of butter, egg yolks and vinegar or lemon juice) are two of the best known emulsions.¹

Basically if you just take oil, egg yolks and vinegar throw them in a dish and stir. They wont mix. 

Mayonnaise

Equipment- A blender (or mixing bowl and whisk)

2 large egg yolks
½ tsp of fine salt

½ tsp dry mustard

2 pinches of sugar

1 ½ tbsp lemon juice

1 cup of oil (corn or safflower oil are best. I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil . It is what I had)

Put egg yolks, the dry ingredients, and half the lemon juice in the blender. Turn the blender on.

Through the opening in the top SLOWLY drop by drop add the oil. Once you start to see it emulsify into a mayo . Start to add the oil faster and then add the lemon juice. Do not over mix.

Remember I had to do it a few times because I put the oil in to fast. Use with in a day of making. They say you can keep it longer but it is raw egg yolks. If you want to make more then about a cup to 1 ½ cups just do it one part at a time. If you double the recipe it might not work. Also make sure you use FRESH eggs A or AA eggs. Raw eggs can make you sick.

Potato Salad

Equipment- knife, chopping board, mixing bowl, spatula and measuring cups/spoons

6 cups of potatoes boiled/diced

10 strips bacon cooked/chopped
¾ cups of mayo

3-4 pinches of sugar

2 tbsp of  apple cider vinegar

½ cup shredded parmesan

3 hard boiled eggs chopped

½ cup of chives finely chopped

Just mix all the ingredients in a bowl and stir well. 

¹ Ron and Sharon Tyler Herbst, The New: Food Lover's Companion (Barron's Educational Series, Inc. 2007) 240