For as long as I can remember, I have detested store-bought mayonnaise. It doesn’t matter the brand, the very sight of that off-white, jiggly stuff in a jar (or worse … squeeze bottle) is enough to make my stomach turn.
While I am generally a card-carrying member of the condiments appreciation club, I cannot do store-bought mayonnaise. Sorry.
This aversion to mayo unfortunately extended to the real thing as well. While I have tonnes of cookbooks that feature mayo recipes and while I have thumbed through many a magazine article extolling the virtues of making your own mayo, I have never even batted an eye.
Until Paris. And Alice Waters‘ In the Green Kitchen.
While in Paris, without even realizing it, I enjoyed a sandwich on some crusty french bread that had been slathered with mayo. “What is this glorious sauce?”, I thought.
Mayonnaise. Homemade.
And then not too long ago I was perusing the heart (and stomach) nourishing In The Green Kitchen and I came across a recipe for Garlic Mayonnaise and I experienced the most urgent desire to make mayonnaise.
If you aren’t familiar with In the Green Kitchen, you should become so quickly. What a beautiful book! When I say it’s “heart-nourishing” I mean it has a quality that strikes the heart right through the stomach. It is a deep and lovely affirmation of simple cooking.
It has all the hallmarks of an Alice Waters book: fresh ingredients, responsible cooking, local food, ambitious but never inaccessible and most of all, delicious.
The book is a gentle stroll from making a beautiful salad all the way to cobbler, with stops at biscuits, peperonata and roast leg of lamb.
As for me and my homemade mayonnaise, well, it was a revelation.
It was creamy and lemony and luscious. I spread it on anything that wasn’t nailed down.
I ate it all up.
Ciao!
If you’re interested in making mayonnaise at home, consider these recipes:
Aioli, Lemon-Dijon Mayonnaise and Olive Oil Mayonnaise.
6 comments
Rosa
I also dislike store-bought mayonnaise! There’s nothing like the real thing. I have been eating it all my life and it is so easy to make…
Cheers,
Rosa
deeba
That’s one thing I still have to tackle… and you are seriously ‘egging’ me on! The olive oil one sounds interesting!
Justin Orde
Aioli/Garlic mayo – I’ve never know if there’s a difference. Either way it’s something I heartily enjoy when it meats stripped roast chicken and warm crusty bread. Magic!
Elizabeth
What a lovely post! I, too, have long had an aversion to (store-bought) mayonnaise. Although I have tolerated it more in the past few years, I can really only stomach the ones made with olive oil… I have never made my own, but this post just may inspire me to do so.
Shandy Hanke
This will be the second cookbook I have purchased after reading your post. Mayonnaise is a scary thing until you try your own and then the possibilities can be only as limited as a person’s imagination. Congratulations on finding your moment to give homemade mayonnaise a try!
Penelope Tsaldari
They’re lies an entire universe of difference between store bought and home made. Love this because it really is relatively easy to make and the taste difference is substantial. “It’s all in the wrist when beating”,my grandmother would always tell me. So enjoyed the simplicity of it.
Many thanks,
Penelope