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Mayonnaise Dressing
All materials should be thoroughly chilled before being used in the making of mayonnaise.
2 raw egg-yolks
⅛ teaspoon mustard
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons vinegar or lemon- ¼ teaspoon pepper juice
¼ teaspoon paprika
2 cups olive oil or substitute
To the yolks add the seasonings, beat thoroughly, add the vinegar, or lemon-juice, and beat again. Add the oil gradually (drop by drop at first). The mixture should be thick and creamy. Should the mayonnaise curdle, begin with a third egg-yolk, add a small quantity of oil to the egg, and then by very small quantities, add the curdled dressing. At times a dressing may be quite firm when left, only to be found curdled and disappointing when the time comes to use it. This third-egg process will, however, usually restore it. Equal proportions of vinegar and lemon-juice may be used. Tarragon vinegar is sometimes used instead of the ordinary kind.
A classic hand-beaten mayonnaise, and the proportions are sound: two yolks will carry two cups of oil if the oil goes in slowly enough. A few points on equipment, safety and rescue work.
- The hinge is the rate of the oilEverything else is seasoning. The first quarter-cup must go in literally drop by drop, whisking constantly, until the emulsion visibly thickens; after that you can move to a thin steady stream. Rushing the opening is the commonest cause of failure, though as the recipe itself notes a dressing can also break after it has been left standing.
- Raw yolksThe yolks are never heated, so use pasteurized eggs, or eggs you trust, and keep the finished dressing refrigerated. Anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised should not eat a raw-yolk mayonnaise at all.
- Chilling matters, but not too muchThe instruction to chill everything helps a hand-whisked emulsion hold, though oil that is refrigerator-cold thickens and drags. Cool room temperature for the oil and cold yolks is the practical compromise; olive oil that has clouded in the cold should be allowed to clear.
- "Olive oil or substitute"The substitute of the period was most often cottonseed oil. A strong extra-virgin olive oil turns bitter under fast beating and dominates the dressing; a neutral oil, or half neutral and half olive, gives the mild table mayonnaise this book intends.
- Machine methodA food processor or immersion blender will emulsify this in under a minute, but the yolk quantity is low for a machine. Two yolks plus the vinegar barely cover an immersion blender head, so use a narrow jar and keep the blade on the bottom until the base sets.
- The third-yolk rescueIt works, and works for a broken jar of mayonnaise from any cause. A teaspoon of warm water or mustard beaten into a fresh yolk gives an even more reliable base for taking back the split mixture.
- Yield and keepingAbout two and a half cups. Refrigerate in a covered jar and use within three or four days; homemade mayonnaise has none of the preservatives or acidity of the commercial kind and will not keep a week.
Mayonnaise reached American cookbooks through French practice in the nineteenth century, its name generally traced to the port of Mahón on Minorca, though the derivation is traditional rather than documented and rival explanations from moyeu, an old French word for egg yolk, have been argued for just as long. By the time this Butterick volume appeared, mayonnaise had become the defining dressing of the American composed salad, spooned over chicken, lobster, celery and moulded vegetables, and the ability to make it by hand without breaking it was a mark of a competent cook. The book devotes as much space to rescuing a curdled batch as to making one, and acknowledges, ruefully, that a dressing can look perfect when you set it down and be ruined by the time dinner is served.