Serious Efforts: Mayonnaise Breaks Down After 2 or 3 Days
I've been making homemade mayonnaise for the past month or so now: whole egg, mustard, salt, other seasonings ad lib, vinegar, 1 2/3 cups peanut oil, apply Bamix.
It sets up beautifully in less than a minute, but after 2 to 3 days in the fridge, it "wilts" and gets runny. Still rich and flavorful—my husband is happy to pour it on fresh-cooked fish—but useless for sandwiches and bad for the kitchen cred.
What am I doing wrong?
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12 Comments:
add a yolk to the broken emulsion..... it will fix it, and you can send me a nice roast beef sandwich in return! Much love to my brothers in the pen.... see ya when they free ya if not when the shove me in!
Pavlov at 5:56PM on 01/17/09
In addition to Pav's fix - is it possible it's not being kept cold enough? Remember, the commercial mayo manufacturing has all these high speed gizmos to make sure the emulsion lasts. Don't beat yourself up if a) it tastes great and b) the hubs doesn't mind "pouring" it on a piece of fish. (Though I'm sure it tastes wonderful.) That's a nice guy.
therealchiffonade at 6:39PM on 01/17/09
Check out the Good Eats recipe for mayo on the Food Network site and see how it compares to yours in both ingredients and technique and see if there's something different that could be significant. For one thing, I know he lets his sit unrefrigerated for a specific amount of time after its finished.
dbcurrie at 8:35PM on 01/17/09
@Pavlov: I've tried the yolk trick - sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.
@therealchiffon: Well, it's being kept in a brand new Amana refrigerator; I'd be surprised if the temperature was much higher than 40º F.
And "high speed gizmos" – the Bamix should be about 700-1000 RPM, if I'm reading correctly reading Amazon.com's stats for a similar model. So I'm still clueless.
gentlyferal at 8:44PM on 01/17/09
Thanks, dbcurrie – I'll get right on it!
gentlyferal at 8:45PM on 01/17/09
@dbcurrie: Brown uses egg yolk rather than whole egg; I think that's part of it. He also lets the mayonnaise sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours after making; I'd love to know why.
gentlyferal at 9:40PM on 01/17/09
@gentlyferal- Alton leaves the mayo at room temp, because it gives the acid in the vinegar time to kill any bacteria that may be associated with the raw egg in the recipe. The acid nworks best in a warmer rather than a cooler environment. It doesn't have anything to do with it breaking or not breaking
dmcavanagh at 9:49PM on 01/17/09
BTW, Pavlov, I tried the yolk trick – it didn't work.
gentlyferal at 10:56PM on 01/17/09
It may actually be that your fridge is working a bit too well, at least in places. An emulsion will break if it gets too cold. And if it breaks for that reason, it's very difficult to get it back together. The cold messes with the water content in funky ways and hurts the emulsifying properties of the egg yolks. If you have a comparatively warmer spot in your fridge, you might try putting your next batch there. Using only egg yolks and skipping the egg whites will probably also help because it'll reduce the overall water content in the mayonnaise.
To try to fix your issue (if you're still working on this batch) you might let it all come to room temperature and whisk or blend in (sort of counter intuitively) a small amount of warm water. If I had a cup of mayonnaise I was trying to pull back together, I'd start with a tablespoon of hot tap water.
Good luck!
ccbweb at 12:04AM on 01/18/09
ccbweb, Thanks a million! :-D
gentlyferal at 2:03AM on 01/18/09
there is also a large discrepancy in oil amounts, between yours and altons. you use 1+2/3 cup and he uses 1 cup. never made mayonaise before but that might be important.
blizcheetah at 10:11PM on 01/18/09
blizcheetah, I also use a whole egg instead of only one egg yolk. If I was using too much oil to start with, it would separate during the mixing process. As I said before, it comes together beautifully every time, but it breaks after a couple days in our new fridge.
I just found this page on fixing broken mayonnaise:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2313513_fix-broken-homemade-mayonnaise.html
gentlyferal at 2:09AM on 01/19/09