Cooked Egg EVOO Mayonnaise
This is a guest post from Donald, co-written by Liz
Olive Oil for Traditional Raw Egg Mayonnaise
I have made basic mayonnaise many times since first learning to cook in the '80s. In those days I used the traditional method, the one you've seen Julia Child demonstrate by beating raw egg yolks with a wire whisk while slowing adding a neutral oil. It’s easy once you get the hang of it, and it's a quick sauce to make whether you choose to use it by itself or as a base for other sauces.
When I was working in catering kitchens (a long time ago) everyone in the kitchen crew thought that using olive oil for making mayonnaise didn’t work well because the flavor was "too strong". Even today many recipes for mayonnaise recommend using a “neutral oil”. Thinking back to that time, it is clear to me now that we didn’t have good olive oil, and that perhaps cookbook authors, journalists, and bloggers who specifically ask you to choose a neutral oil rather than olive oil may be reacting to the aroma and flavor of fermented or rancid olive oil. I wonder if their recommendations would be the same if they had authentic fresh extra virgin olive oil on hand.
Now that I use high quality EVOO in the kitchen everyday I thought I’d experiment with making mayonnaise using our oils.
The results were excellent! The flavor of the oil does indeed come through very well in a pleasant mildly fruity way, and makes for a healthier sauce versus substituting a "neutral" oil, too. As Liz likes to tell folks, "neutral" oil is code for "refined" oil, and refined oil is an odorless flavorless fat with the same 120 calories per tablespoon and an EVOO but without EVOO's nutritional benefits.
Cooked Egg Mayonnaise
In addition to the question about which oil to use, many people will not make this sauce because of the requirement that raw egg be used. Recently, social media has made the idea of cooked egg mayos popular. This is not a new technique; chefs long ago have known about this option, however, I have never tried it, so the technique is a new one for me.
There is a technical difference when making mayonnaise with cooked egg. It would be very difficult to whisk in oil into cooked egg by hand using a wire whisk, so you need to either use a food processor, a mini processor like a Bullet blender, or an immersion blender. There is a difference in techniques between these three tools so I will give instructions for each in the recipes that follow.
Flavored Mayonnaise
Once you become comfortable making mayonnaise at home, whipping up a sauce is quick and very simple, especially using this cooked egg method. In preparing this post we made a traditional "plain" mayonnaise, an herbed mayonnaise, and a sriracha version.
