On February 26th 2005 I put up my first Words piece.

This one is my thousandth.
(Not my thousandth entry, I have simultaniously managed
to put up around 725 recipes)

Of course one feels compelled to do something special to
mark the occasion so I went rooting through my archives
to find something appropriate.

I eventually decided that the most appropriate action would
be to reproduce my very first effort, four years ago, on
Mayonnaise.

Its been good fun doing the first thousand.

Mayonnaise

Picture by Caitriona
(well worth one thousand words)

I have always loved mayonnaise.
Loved to eat it but I think even more loved to make it.
Before I ever started to cook professionally I had read
Elizabeth Davids inspiring essay on mayonnaise in
French Provincial Cooking. I say essay very deliberately
because, far from being just a recipe this two page
treatise and hymn to mayonnaise tells you all about its
history and the legends that surround its birth, but also
of course, tells you how to make the stuff.
However the bit that inspired me is where she says
“I do not care, unless I am in a great hurry, to let it,
(an electric beater)deprive me of the pleasure and
satisfaction to be obtained by sitting down quietly with
bowl and spoon, eggs and oil, to the peaceful kitchen
task of concocting the beautiful shining golden ointment
which is mayonnaise”

These poetic lines moved me instantly into mayonnaise
manufacture.

There is something almost magical about mayonnaise
everytime you make it.
Two entirely liquid ingredients, runny almost, when
blended in a certain painstaking way can merge into
such a thick unctuous, well… ointment.

My very first job was in a very chic basement restaurant
called Snaffles in Leeson street in Dublin. This was run by
an eccentric but essentially lovable ascendancy couple
called Nick and Rosie Tinne. Rosie was at this time compiling
her book “Irish Country House Cooking” (still available
occasionally on the internet). The time was the very early
seventies and I was in my very early twenties and very naive.

Rosie flew in the door of the kitchen one morning carrying
a dozen crap splattered eggs, a large tin of Italian Olive Oil,
and a huge wooden bowl and spoon.
“Maahtin, Maahtin! You MUST make some mayonnaise for me.
I’m having a party tonight and I’ve got the curse, it ALWAYS
curdles when I’ve got the curse!”
Needless to say I got over my shock and made her the
mayo, and yes I made it in the wooden bowl with the wooden
spoon as she had been taught to in her Cordon Blue school in Paris.

There was a lot of mystique about making mayonnaise t
hough.
I remember an aunt of mine doing something very complicated
in a liquidizer which involved hard boiled eggs, cream and
copious quantities of vinegar.

We mistrusted the simple and pure flavour of good eggs and
olive oil in Ireland for a long time. (When my sister came
back from an au pair job in Frejus in the late fifties, fired
with the tastes of Provence, she discovered that Olive Oil
was only available in minute bottles in Chemists shops and
intended to promote suntans!)

Mayonnaise is perhaps the simplest of all sauces. I have
often said in cookery classes that I can make a half pint
of mayonnaise in much the same time as it would take
you to find it in the Hellmans jar in the fridge – and I can!
I will follow Ms. David’s proportions for making the
“golden ointment”

Recipe:
3 large Freerange Eggs at room temperature
300ml Good Olive Oil also at room temperature
(I don’t always search out extra virgin oil for this)
Pinch Salt and grating of black pepper
1 tablespoon White Wine Vinegar

Beat the eggs thoroughly with the salt and pepper
(I quite often use an electric hand held beater if none of my
cooking mentors are looking)
Dribble in the oil, firstly drop by drop and then as the oil
starts to thicken the yolks you can increase the rate to a
thin stream and add the vinegar.
Again, I will quote Elizabeth David to tell you when to stop
“It should, if a spoonful is lifted up and dropped back into
the bowl, fall from the spoon with a satisfying plop, and
retain its shape, like a thick jelly”
this marvellous (and sensual) description is perfect.

Make your own mayonnaise, it tastes so much better
and who knows, you too might enjoy the process of making
the “golden ointment”.