I cannot make mayonnaise
My girlfriend knows the secrets of making mayonnaise. She can make thick, luxurious, home-made mayonnaise, 100% of the time. Mayonnaise that would make even Batman weep with joy.
Girlfriend showed me how to make mayonnaise
I asked her how she makes mayonaisse. She said she would show me.
The following is the conversation that ensued:
Her: Okay, so you crack an egg in a bowl and then you pour enough oil into the bowl to cover the egg...
Me: Hang on, hang on. How much oil is it exactly? In millilitres or grams please.
Her: I don’t know, I always just do it by eye.
Me: Can’t we use a scale to find out?
Her: (laughing) No, we don't need a scale! Making mayonnaise is really easy. Too easy to need a scale. You just crack the egg in the bowl and pour enough oil into the bowl to cover the egg. Easy. See?
Me: Hmm...I’m still not sure, but okay.
The first time I made mayonnaise
The first time I tried to make mayonnaise myself, I had to call Girlfriend into the kitchen.
Me: It’s not working. It’s too liquid.
Her: (Throwing her hand over her mouth in shock.) How did you...? I have never, ever seen anyone fail at mayonnaise before.
Me: Maybe if you give me the recipe with standard measurements...
Her: No no, there is no need for measurements. Making mayonnaise is easy. Look, we will make it again. By eye.
She keeps saying "by eye, by eye" but all that makes me think about is my actual eye. What would happen if it fell out of my eye socket and into the mayonnaise? Hang on, maybe that's the secret.
My girlfriend is like an Eastern European grandmother called Babushka who has a complicated soup recipe that only she knows and she will never tell it to anyone, she will take it to her grave, and when you try to add a tiny pinch of salt to the bubbling cauldron of soup, for flavour, she SLAPS your hand and says “No no NO, no salt now! Are you STUPID?”
Why is making mayonnaise so hard?
Making mayonnaise is hard. That is a fact. Some people say that climbing Mount Everest is hard, but I would say it's easy and that making mayonnaise is the true test of any human being.
The reason making mayonnaise is so hard is that oil and egg don't like to emulsify. If it was up to them, they would stay separate for the rest of their lives. But it's your job to defy the laws of nature and get them to come together in a way that doesn't result in a diarrhoea-like mess.
If you use too much oil, the mayonnaise will fail to thicken. If you use too little oil, the mayonnaise will fail to thicken. Basically, if you use any amount of oil other than the perfect amount then you'll be left with a disgusting liquidy yellow mess with the consistency and appearance of phlegm.
When Girlfriend makes the mayonnaise, I beg her, literally beg her to let me weigh the oil she is using so I can use the same amount of oil next time, the perfect amount of oil. I plead with her. But she always says no, that there is no need for measurements, mayonnaise can be made by eye. BY EYE.
Today I tried to make mayonnaise again and it came out as a liquidy disgusting mess. Like the worst diarrhoea, you can imagine. Literally the worst. I could see the egg in there, and I could see the oil, and the two had failed to merge together. It looked like some kind of awful skin disease, the kind where they attach a bell to your head to warn people you’re coming.
But I ate it anyway, or tried to. I ate there while I silently wept because the mayonnaise was so bad that it reminded me of dog piss.
For now, home-made mayonnaise remains elusive to me. But maybe, one day, I will finally get the exact measurements, and I will rule over the mayonnaise.
Update
I finally broke Girlfriend’s iron will. I convinced her to use a scale when she made mayonnaise. By doing this, I learned the exact proportions of egg to oil needed to make the perfect mayonnaise. I have tried the recipe myself and can confirm that the portions are indeed correct. I am now pretty much the Dark Lord of mayonnaise, able to conjure homemade mayonnaise at will thanks to my forbidden knowledge.
if you want to make mayonnaise yourself at home, here are the steps:
- Crack an egg into a bowl (the egg should be 50 g or so)
- Add 150 gram of olive oil (not vegetable oil as vegetable oil doesn't work)
- Blend it with an electric blender until you have mayonnaise (should take around 1 or 2 minutes of blending)
And that's all there is to it. It's so simple that I can't believe I struggled all this time to make mayonnaise.
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