Mayonnaise defies the natural order, much like life itself. Normally oil and water do not mix, but mayonnaise forms an emulsion that keeps the oil dispersed in the water for a long time. It does this through the magic of bipolar molecules – Little molecules with one end that loves oil and the other end that loves water. They surround the oil droplets with their oil loving heads pointing into the oil droplet and their water loving tails facing out and connecting with the water around the oil. This keeps the oil droplet suspended and connected to the water.
All the cells in our body and all living cells use this same principal to form cell walls – except in cell walls there is a double layer of bipolar molecules with the oil loving heads “kissing” in the middle and the tails facing half outward toward the extra cellular fluid and the other half facing inward toward the liquid in the inside of the cell.
So mayonnaise is pretty remarkable stuff. Typically mayonnaise is made with a vegetable oil dispersed in a small amount of vinegar. The magic that makes this oil and vinegar dressing turn into mayonnaise is egg yolk and usually mustard. Both contain these bipolar molecules – lecithin in the egg yolk and mucilage in the mustard. When the oil is added slowly to the vinegar with the egg yolk and mustard and mixed/dispersed vigorously, magic happens and we get mayonnaise.
It is amazing how popular mayonnaise is all over the world. I remember a few years ago when I was visiting my son in Japan how mayonnaise was served with so many different dishes. The recipe varies with each country, but the magic is the same.
But like so many other wonderful foods, modern industrial food manufacturing has turned a wholesome food product into a toxic mess. I wrote a newsletter a while back on how to make your own mayonnaise at home using a stick blending wand and healthy avocado oil. Today I want to introduce you to an easier method that has the benefit of being egg free. This will make the vegans happy, but the real benefit is about not having to worry about using a food product with raw egg in it. This makes it much safer when you are using the mayonnaise in a sandwich or food dish that will be at room temperature for many hours.
Why is commercial mayonnaise a toxic mess? The reason is simple, the oil they make modern mayonnaise out of is toxic. All the seed oils – canola, soy, sunflower, safflower, cottonseed, and so on are very fragile. That means that they go rancid very easily. Any exposure to air or heat or sunlight and poof, they have gone bad. Just time alone is reason enough for these oils to go bad. Even if you used only fresh, low temperature, cold pressed oil in an oxygen free environment, you still would not want to use more than a teaspoon a day of this oil/mayonnaise. This is because these oils are all omega 6 oils that promote inflammation in the human body. We need them in tiny amounts, like half a teaspoon a day, but beyond that they make us hurt more.
Better oils for making mayonnaise would be the monounsaturated oils like olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and some nut oils. They do not promote inflammation. The question arises, should we make mayonnaise out of the omega 3 anti-inflammatory oils like fish oil? Besides being a disgusting idea, the answer is still no, because omega 3 oils, like omega 6 oils are very fragile and go rancid very easily. It is a challenge finding a good fish oil supplement that is not rancid. If it smells fishy, then it is rancid. That smell we associate with fish is really rancid omega 3 fish oil. Really fresh fish do not have a fishy smell and really fresh fish oil capsules do not smell fishy either.
I have only seen a couple purely monounsaturated oil mayonnaises on the market, and they are in tiny jars and still cost a fortune. They are probably good products, so if you love your mayo and are not willing to do a little do-it-yourself mayo creation, then by all means use these better choices. Traditional oil-egg-vinegar mayonnaise is tricky to make and frequently ends in failure – meaning a liquid salad dressing base. But with these alternative eggless versions, anybody can be a mayo-making king in no time.
The first egg free mayonnaise I tried uses an unlikely base emulsifying agent – garbanzo bean flour. I was pretty dubious about the recipe the first time, but the results were amazing. You start several hours in advance by cooking up a batch of garbanzo bean flour as though you were cooking cream of wheat. Whisk ¾ cup garbanzo bean flour into 2 cups boiling water that was salted with 1 ½ tsp of sea salt. Turn the heat to medium and cook for 4 to 5 minutes. Put the resulting garbanzo bean mush into a bowl and put it into the fridge to get cold. I assume that the chilling process is to reassemble the starch molecules into the needed form that will help emulsify the oil into the mixture.
Once your mush is cold you can finish the process of making the mayonnaise. I like using mason jars and a stick blender to make my mayo, because that way it is already in the same jar I am going to store it in once I am finished mixing it all up. That said, most people make this mayo in a standard blender. Put your mush into the jar or blender and add 1 tablespoon vinegar, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, 2 teaspoons dry mustard or prepared Dijon mustard, and a little over 1 cup of Avocado oil. Blend the whole mess on high till well blended and thick. If you like flavored mayonnaise, now would be a good time to add such things as minced garlic to make an Aioli, or some sugar to make a Miracle Whip flavor, or some cayenne or black pepper for a bit of spice. Any herb you fancy could be used if you wish. Recipe:
2 cups water
¾ cup Garbanzo Bean Flour
11/2 tsp sea salt
1 Tbs Vinegar
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp dry mustard
1 cup+ avocado oil
I thought the first mayonnaise was good, but then I created a recipe using silken soft tofu. Use the silken soft if you want a really smooth and creamy mayonnaise. Other tofu types could work, but the final product will be grainy or have curds in it. Like the first recipe, simply dump all the ingredients into a jar or blender and blend until smooth.
12 oz. Silken soft tofu
1/’2 cup avocado oil
1 tsp sea salt
1 Tbs Vinegar
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp dry mustard
I like to add an additional teaspoon of fish sauce to give it a deeper flavor as well as a couple drops of Dr. Dave’s liquid stevia sweetener. One thing you will notice is that both of these recipes end up using about 1/3rd the amount of oil regular mayonnaise uses, yet they taste and feel rich and creamy like real mayonnaise.
So there you have it – rich creamy mayonnaise made at home that is actually good for you. Both of these are fool-proof and really easy to make.