Val asked me a while ago if I knew of some French recipe and I said no, not really. I could not think of any at the time. And then yesterday I made some delicious mayonnaise and thought I could share the recipe with you Tag readers, especially when it’s so easy and quick to make.
When we were kids, we always had home made mayonnaise. Our mum, like most mums around us, could not afford any of these ready stuff we buy today without thinking. I learned how to cook from her, as you do when you’re a girl, and the French dishes I most enjoy today are those my mum cooked for us, years ago. Life on the farm was hectic, demanding and tough for mum. She had 6 lively kids to hug, feed and love, crops, vineyard and orchard to tend to, animals to feed first thing in the morning for a couple of hours and last thing at night again for a couple of hours, and a loving but war wounded and sad husband for whom she remained a pretty and tender wife until he died in the late 80’s. Her meals had to be good, plentiful, cheap and really quick to prepare. I don’t know how she did it all. Nobody does. She was, and still is, extraordinary my mum..I’ll share more about her later.
And the mayo was one of those precious things that was quick to make. Having seen her make mayo in 30 seconds, year after year, I always took for granted that everyone knew how to make mayo in 30 seconds, when actually very few people do. So here it is, and if any of you readers makes it after reading this, do write in and tell us how it turned out.
You’ll need a hand blender with a container ideally just wide enough at the bottom so that you can sit the hand blender in it. You’ll need an egg, a big table spoon of French mustard( we like the Dijon’s extra strong one) and about ½ cup of sunflower oil. ( another vegetable oil will do I’m sure, but I’ve never tried another one) I find olive oil to be too strong for my taste. All ingredients should be at room temperature before you start. If the egg is straight from the fridge I usually put it in my pocket and get busy with something else for 15 minutes.
1- Crack the egg gently in the container trying to keep it whole
2- Put one tablespoon of mustard with the egg
3- Add the oil, a pinch of salt and pepper
4- Sit the hand blender in the bottom, covering the egg yolk, and start blending lifting the blender very slowly. It should only take a few seconds. And that’s it!!! Taste your mayo and if you like garlic( we do!) crush a clove and add it, then blend a few seconds more. For a lighter one, I add some natural yogurt….you can experiment and add whatever you fancy. Sometimes I add a lemon juice if we’re having it with fish…we added some curry powder the other day but I didn’t think it was interesting enough.
My sister Bibi mentioned the other day that she doesn’t always succeed in making her mayonnaise like mum did. So here is another way that has never failed me so far: you put the yolk only with the oil and whisk for a couple of seconds. You then have like a yellow liquid. To that you then add the white of the egg and the mustard and whisk again. Now you have a lovely thick mayonnaise.
One Sunday dish we loved so much when we were kids and that was made with my mum’s mayo is called “oeufs mimosa” or “Mimosa eggs”. Very simple to make . Here is the recipe:
You hard-boil for 10 minutes as many eggs as you have people eating, peel them and let them cool down. Make the mayonnaise while the eggs are boiling. Then cut the eggs in half, long ways. Remove the yellows gently so as to not damage the white parts and put aside a couple of yellows. With the rest of the yellows, crush them with a fork and mix them to the mayo with a tin of tuna flakes. Arrange the white egg boats on a bed of lettuce, fill them generously with the tuna/egg/mayo mixture and then grate the other 2 yellows you’ve put aside, over the top of them. It’s like a mimosa shower, very pretty. My mum had one of those little kitchen gadget that she used for grating cheese very finely, and she used that with those yolks. She always put a black or green olive on top of each one, and for my dad she added a few anchovies he loved. She did the same thing with fresh tomatoes in the summer, cutting them in half, emptying them, refilling them with the mayo mixture….and it made a lovely summer first dish…I made some Mimosa eggs for my brother last month when he came for lunch with his girlfriend and when I brought the dish onto the table his smile said it all…I hadn’t done any “Mimosa eggs” for years and when I did, it’s my childhood that came rushing past my face with all it’s wonderfully chaotic and ferocious mumble-jumble mixture of emotions and memories…
