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Mayonnaise Sauce
A mixture of egg-yolks, oil, vinegar, or lemon-juice. The principal point to be attended to in preparing this sauce is the mode of mixing, which demands time, patience, and nicety. Break the yolk of a fresh egg into a bowl with a salt-spoonful of pepper and salt mixed. Beat it till thick, then add from time to time, during the mixing, two or three drops of the best Lucca oil until about four ounces have been used, and the mixture is thick and yellow. When eight tea-spoonfuls of oil have been used, stir in one tea-spoonful of white vinegar, and continue adding oil and vinegar in these proportions until all the oil is used. The yolk of one egg would be sufficient for a pint of oil and vinegar in proportion. The addition of a few drops of lemon-juice makes mayonnaise look creamy; tarragon vinegar assists the flavour. Mayonnaise will keep a long time if bottled closely and kept in a cool place. MAYONNAISE SAUCE (another way). (See LOBSTER SALAD.)
A textbook hand-whisked mayonnaise, with the period's characteristic caution about adding the oil drop by drop. The proportions and the storage advice are the two things that need attention.
- The hinge: add the oil slowly at firstThe emulsion is built in the first tablespoon or two. Add the oil literally a few drops at a time until the mixture visibly thickens and pales, after which you can move to a thin steady stream. Rushing this stage is a common cause of failure.
- Lucca oilOlive oil from Lucca in Tuscany, prized in Victorian Britain as among the mildest and cleanest-tasting available. Any good mild olive oil works; a strong peppery extra-virgin can turn bitter under vigorous whisking, so a proportion of neutral oil can help.
- Salt-spoonfulAbout a quarter teaspoon. Here it covers pepper and salt together, so season lightly at the start and correct at the end.
- QuantitiesFour ounces of oil is about half a cup by volume. The claim that one yolk will carry a full pint (an imperial pint, 20 fluid ounces) is technically true, but the result is stiff and bland; one yolk to three-quarters of a cup gives a better sauce, and two yolks to a pint better still.
- Everything at room temperatureA cold yolk and cold oil emulsify reluctantly. Take the egg out well ahead, and if the sauce splits, start a fresh yolk in a clean bowl and beat the broken mixture into it a spoonful at a time.
- AcidWhite wine vinegar, tarragon vinegar or lemon juice all work; the acid thins the sauce as well as flavouring it, so add it whenever the mixture becomes too stiff to whisk rather than strictly by the teaspoon.
- StorageIgnore the advice about bottling and keeping a long time in a cool place. This sauce contains uncooked yolk and no preservative; refrigerate it and use within three or four days. For anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurised eggs.
- YieldTaken only as far as the four ounces of oil named in the text, roughly half a cup of sauce; the recipe then scales up to a pint of oil per yolk.
Mayonnaise reached English cookery books from France in the early nineteenth century and was still being explained from first principles when Cassell's Dictionary appeared. The name's origin is disputed: it is variously traced to Mah u00f3n in Menorca, taken by the French in 1756, to the old French moyeu for an egg yolk, and to the town of Bayonne, none of which is settled. The insistence on "time, patience, and nicety" reflects a kitchen without electric beaters, where a pint of oil meant a long arm; the reference to Lucca oil is a reminder that good olive oil was an imported luxury in Britain, sold by grocers by the bottle and valued precisely for tasting of very little.