Magic in the kitchen: instant mayo

A kitchen experiment ends in delicious success.

By Lucie Lehmann-Barclay

from the April 16, 2008 edition

Page 1 of 3

As I walked home from work, I was looking forward to a tuna salad for supper on the first warm day of spring. And so certain was I that I had all the ingredients, I sauntered past my neighborhood grocery store in happy anticipation. I already had tuna, hard-boiled eggs, onion, cherry tomatoes, lettuce – everything I needed, I thought.

And then I reached into the fridge for the mayonnaise – well, that I didn't have. And how can you have a tuna salad without the mayo? A niggling suggestion said: Make a cream sauce and have creamed tuna over toast. But I refused. I'd had a long winter of soups and creamed leftovers on toast. It was tuna salad I wanted!

That was when inspiration hit and I reached for my trusty old "Joy of Cooking." Looking up mayonnaise in the index, I felt an upwelling of adventure. Make mayonnaise? That's a project to daunt any cook. After all, I'd always read that making mayonnaise was a gourmet endeavor, subject to textural failure.

In fact, as I read over several recipes, I learned that I would need a strong arm. At the end of my workday, I wasn't sure I had one. But then I found a recipe for blender mayonnaise. It was obviously the cop-out not only for the weak of arm but the slightly doubting of spirit – so naturally I opted for it.

Since I needed only enough mayo for one salad, I mentally halved the recipe. But it being tricky to halve one fresh egg, I broke the whole thing into the blender.

The next ingredient was a teaspoon of ground mustard. Well, I didn't have the ground kind, so I used a half-teaspoon of the hot-dog variety.

Then came a dash of cayenne, and in the absence of that, I shook in a half-dash of chili power. Salt and sugar I had, and of the right type and quantity.

Carried away by the spirit of adventure – and one that wouldn't cost much in the case of "defeated mayonnaise" (and that was the term in my cookbook) – I went on to the main ingredient, salad oil.

Now, the gourmet recipe, with its long and virtuous hand-beating, called for olive oil, and while I had enough on hand, I decided not to waste it on a lark. Instead, I poured from a quart of the low-price, all-purpose oil I generally use for greasing pans.

Again, no great loss in the face of implied defeat, I thought.

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | Next Page