Mayonnaise

Appears in
Cooking
Cooking

By James Peterson

Published 2007

  • About
Mayonnaise is one of the most underrated sauces. Most of us get it out of a jar and forget how much better a simple homemade mayonnaise is, and how versatile mayonnaise is as a medium for flavors and as the base for salsa like sauces.

Made by working oil slowly into egg yolks, homemade mayonnaise intimidates beginning cooks because it can separate if you don’t approach it right. Directions are overly complicated with warnings about this and that. If you add the oil to the egg yolks too quickly, especially at the beginning, the mayonnaise won’t pull together and the yolks and oil will stay separate. The mayonnaise can also separate if you let it get too thick and the particles of emulsified oil are forced together (see more about emulsions).