Oh the magic of mayo!

By Valerie On July 24, 2010 · 40 Comments

I fell asleep on the couch after coming home from work. For real! I had the most wonderful nap (which caused me to miss my 2 favortie cooking shows, but well, who cares, I was napping). I have no idea what caused me to be this tired, okay, I went to bed a little late last night, but I really didn’t feel all that tired.

The idea had been to prepare my baked ham and whole artichokes fairly soon after getting home, as that both takes some time to get ready. I really really planned that.

But the couch was so comfy… And the temperature inside had become actually pleasant… And I dozed off…

I woke up about 5 minutes before L came home from work. Yeah, having our ham-and-artichoke dinner ready when he got home wasn’t going to happen. It left me with two choices. Either whip up something else from pantry staples, or just eat late.

I chose eating late. L doesn’t mind, he rather has great food than timely food. And I wholeheartedly agree!

After I cleaned my artichokes for boiling, I decided to make my own dipping sauce instead of just using melted butter, mayo or a vinaigrette.

I decided on an aioli of sorts, which is basically a fancy name for garlic mayo or garlic sauce. I figured it’d go nicely with the artichokes. I remembered how to make it, approximately, and just gave it a try, which is when I re-discovered the magic of mayo. Oh mayo is so magical! I really really truly is!
I used to make aioli or mayo quite often. But for some reason I’d stopped doing that. Why? Why did I stop? This is so easy. And so magical. The way the egg yolk transforms with the addition of olive oil. Neither the yolk or the oil is white, but it makes a white(ish) sauce. It’s magic. Utter, utter magic.
(I like the word utter, it’s my word of the day, for now!)

So a real recipe isn’t in order yet, as I didn’t measure anything. Plus you really really need to make these kinds of sauces to your own taste. Do you like it thick or thin, lemony, garlicy, spicy or something else?

But here’s the scoop.

Separate an egg. Save the white for something else, like angel food cake or something.
Add garlic, pepper, salt and seasonings you like. Now I started out with a couple of spritzes of flavored olive oil. Just whisk your egg yolk and spritz the oil in. Then grab you regular, extra virgine olive oil and drizzle it in, a little at a time, until it takes and becomes mayo-like. The 1 yolk can really handle a lot of oil, so just keep trying bit by bit until you reach the amount and consistency you like.
I decided it was a little too oily – so I added some more salt (still just tiny little pinches though) and some lemon juice. Keep whisking the things you like in, until you like the taste.

I love this so so much more than store bought mayo or aioli. It’s so dang good! Yummm.

Oh, and one final note. Don’t do this if you’re scared of raw egg. Or make sure you buy pasteurized eggs/yolks. Though I have NO idea how those respond to oil.

Now I’ve never really worried about raw eggs, so I’ll keep making this for us.

And I really really really need more egg-white-recipes!