Creamy Homemade Mayonnaise

Once you've tasted homemade mayonnaise, you'll never go back to store bought mayonnaise ever again, it's so smooth and creamy and tastes great. What's more, you will find that it's not hard to make your own mayonnaise, the trick is getting the ingredients right or you'll end up with a bit of a mess!

Ingredients

2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups oil (try for a light, flavorless oil, like peanut oil or safflower oil)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 tablespoon mustard powder (optional)

Method

Separate your egg yolks from the egg whites. You won't be using the egg whites for this recipe, so keep them for another recipe or find something else you'd like to make that can use them up so they don't go to waste.

This is the fun part - you want to put one egg yolk into one bowl and the other egg yolk into another bowl. The recipe for homemade mayonnaise is separated like this to make sure you end up with a really smooth mayonnaise at the end.

You'll need to use a whisk for these steps. If you have an electric whisk, then this is fine. If not then a hand whisk will just take a little longer. Don't be tempted to cheat and use a blender or food processor or stick blender. They're just too heavy for this recipe and your mayonnaise will turn stiff. You want creamy, so use a whisk.

In the first egg yolk bowl, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the mustard (once again, this is optional). Whisk at a low speed until the egg yolk begins to look sticky. Very slowly add a few drops of the oil into the egg mixture. Once again, it's important not to cheat and add too much oil at a time. Don't get bored and think you can start adding oil faster to make it go quicker either. You really need to add the oil very slowly to make this recipe work. You're only going to add about half of your total oil amount at this step.

Move over to the second bowl with the second egg yolk in it. Whisk the egg yolk until it goes a little sticky. Use a tablespoon to transfer the egg-oil mix one spoonful at a time over to the whisked second egg.

Whisk each new spoonful very well into the egg before adding another spoon. When you're done, resume drizzling the oil into the mixture. Remember to keep beating the whole time.

Once you're done with the oil, add the lemon juice. Never add the whole amount at once. Always put a little in, mix together and taste. If you want a little more zing to your home made mayonnaise, then add a little more lemon juice. This is completely up to your own tastes, so add until it tastes right to you.

Homemade Mayonnaise Variations

Now that you have a lovely, smooth and creamy homemade mayonnaise, let's work with some variations from this base recipe.

Homemade Tartar Sauce

Create your homemade mayonnaise the same as the base recipe, only add 1/2 cup of very finely chopped pickles and 1/2 teaspoon very finely chopped parsley.

Tartar sauce is a wonderful addition to fish and seafood dishes and tastes great with fries.

Homemade Thousand Island Dressing

Thousand Island dressing is the orange-pink dressing usually seen garnishing shrimp cocktails.

Simply take 1 cup of your homemade mayonnaise. Add 1/2 cup ketchup and 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce. Check the taste and then add a little more ketchup if you feel it needs a little more tartness or add a little more Worcestershire sauce if you like a little more zing to your sauce.

Homemade Garlic Aioli

Take 1 cup of your mayonnaise. Add 2 crushed garlic cloves and 2 teaspoons of wholegrain mustard. (Remember - if you added mustard into your original mayonnaise recipe, then only add another 1 teaspoon of wholegrain mustard instead of 2).

Blend well and serve on pasta, seafood or over roasted potatoes.