Mayonnaise- not as hard as they said!

Making mayonnaise isn't actually that difficult. As long as you have the right tools, and you're not in a rush.


I haven't made mayonnaise in years- quite literally, as I can tell you that the last time I made it semi-regularly was in 2002, when we were living in New York, and, for the life of me, I couldn't find what we consider "real" mayonnaise.

Hellman's, yes, but that's not real. It's not the right colour, it's not the right texture, and it's not made with the right oil.

As far as I'm concerned, anyway. I didn't grow up with Hellman's, that means that it's just Not Right.

Therefore, rather like the year before, when we were living in the Caribbean and the only bread I could find was steam-baked and tasted sweet, I started to make my own.

With, in this case, a bottle of sunflower oil, tracked down at vast expense. Why it was so expensive, I wouldn't know, but I remember it being something insane like 10$ for a 220ml bottle. Or thereabouts. No doubt that my brain has preferred to wipe the memory from my wallet.

So I made mayonnaise, a few times, and I remember it taking a while, being a bit tricky the first time, but being generally OK. My Larousse Gastronomique told me that everything ought to be room temperature, and I seem to remember that I only read that after making it the first time!

However, having friends staying who were stuck due to Volcano Ejs-something-or-other, I was determined to feed them properly in order to cheer them up. French and Spanish asparagus having finally hit the market, I fed them twice in three days on asparagus for a first course. Once hot, and once cold.

Both times, I made the mayonnaise about an hour or so beforehand. The first time, having forgotten about the room-temperature rule, I had to stick my eggs in warm water for about ten minutes beforehand. It really didn't seem to make much difference.

Mayonnaise for four:
- 3 egg yolks
- olive oil
- sunflower oil
- mustard ("prepared" mustard is, I believe, the technical term)
- salt flakes
- ground pepper

Making mayonnaise easily depends, very much, I think, on being comfortable whilst you work. Therefore, I use a small bowl with a handle, which means that I can hold the bowl without getting cramp in my palm, and also hold the bowl at different heights in order to give my wrist a rest. Also, you really need a whisk with a thick handle. A small whisk, obviously, as you're only whisking three eggs, but you don't want one with a thin handle- it will just give you cramp in your palm and make the whole thing uncomfortable.

Whisk your egg yolks briefly, to mix them and break them up.

Now, all the books say to start with a teensy drop of oil, whisk like mad, and work your way up very slowly from there. I don't hugely agree with this. A drop, yes, whisk, then keep going, but you really don't have to put in the teensiest drop at the start. As long as you whisk hard and fast, you'll be OK.

Take your time. The first five, six times, a small drop, then you can go for a teaspoon at a time. Not that you need to measure it out! Just what looks about right.

The whole thing shouldn't take more than ten minutes. And that includes breaks to rest your shoulder- you don't have to keep going the whole time.

Now, I haven't given measurements for the oils. This is because I have no idea. I taste mine as I go along. Olive oil gives quite a strong flavour, and you may not want this. If you've got to a flavour that's too strong, stick to sunflower oil from then on in. I tend to swap my oils about after 4-5 additions. But my finished product is probably about 2/5 olive, 3/5 sunflower.

At the end, I add mustard, salt, pepper. This dilutes the mayonnaise, and you have to add more oil. I also add the mustard to taste- whatever seems right to me, which seems to end up being about 3 tsp.

That was my basic recipe- however, the last time I made it (I didn't really mean to, but I had four egg yolks from a recipe I was making, so I stopped half-way through and made mayonnaise), I made some changes.

English mayonnaise:
- 4 eggs
- 2 tsp English mustard powder (Colman's!)
- 4 tsp white wine vinegar
- olive oil
- sunflower oil
- salt, pepper

This time, I whisked the eggs, added the mustard powder and white wine vinegar, then added the oils. Salt and pepper at the end.

It then went in a labeled jam jar in the fridge, and Peter has been very happily smearing it on bread and eating it like bread-and-butter ever since! It's funny- the olive oil taste shows up first, and it's only after you've swallowed that the mustard sneaks up and whacks you across the back of the throat. Which, I think, makes it fine for sandwiches, fine for eating on bread, but not quite so fine for eating with asparagus.

Quiche Lorraine

Quiche is a dish that I have a particular fondness for. And, as it turned out, Greta quite likes it too, which is, as I continue my quest to find things that she will tolerate being put into her mouth, is helpful.

Peter, however, never seems particularly enthused. I usually either end up throwing the last quarter out, or eating far more quiche than I want to, as it's been sitting long enough for the pastry to not be particularly crisp any more.

The latter, however, is a problem.

I always make my pastry "by eye"- by which I mean that I dump what looks like enough flour into the bowl, then add enough butter for it to make fine breadcrumbs (with a few clumps, which, I am assured by the best cooks, are necessary), and then add cold water to bring it together. Not too much, of course, as it allows for shrinkage, but just about enough. I hope. When making something like quiche lorraine, I like to put grated parmesan in the mix as well. And black pepper.

I then shape my pastry into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and put it in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. After which I take it out, dust my marble counter-top with flour, and roll it out. For some reason, I always have to roll it out twice, as the first time it invariably sticks, no matter how much flour I've put down. I then fold my pastry into four, place it in the baking dish, and unfold it before pressing it into place very gently. Having had a few too many cases where my pastry shrank right down to the edge of the filling, leaving very little crust, I now then just cut off whatever would hang right down and drape over the oven tray, but leave plenty of pastry hanging down the sides of the dish.

The problem, to be succinct, is that although the sides are fine, the base of my pastry is often not soggy, but not crisp either. I'm wondering if I need to pre-bake, or maybe instead of putting the dish on the grille, put it on a pre-heated oven tray, to give it that blast of heat... or whether I need to turn my oven up above 180C to maybe 200. Or I could try turning it to 220 for the first 20 mns or so, before turning it back down.

I must do more work on this. Especially as I know that this is a damn fine crust- so fine that I find myself eating the edges that I cut off, even though I always mean not to!

For the rest of my quiche, I chopped smoked bacon into quite thick lardons, and fried them with some finely chopped onion. I then whisked eggs together with some cream, added black pepper and some more parmesan (I know, Elizabeth David would be most unimpressed with me, saying that it's not a quiche Lorraine at all, as the strict interpretation has just bacon and eggs in it), drained the fat off my bacon and onion and spread it on the pastry, poured the eggs over, and baked it for about an hour at 180 C.

Result- well, it always tastes fine. But it's not satisfactory. I really need to get this problem with my pastry sorted out. Which means more baking, oh dear...

Greta, however, as I've said, loved it. She ate it for a meal every day for three days, and was very happy about it- even leaning forward towards the fork!