Friday, March 6, 2009

Wasabi Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise... Ahhhhh what great and wonderful stuff it is... mmmmmmmm, drool...

Did you know that originally mayo was made with garlic? Yup! I do like mine that way since I use a LOT of garlic (Vlad will not get me, HA!) when cooking anyways. Now, it's just hearsay, but the story goes that mayo was made in France with garlic. But when one particular Cardinal came to power he decreed NO garlic in mayo. He hated garlic. Something tells me he wasn't *really* French.

Anyways, that's just what I heard yonks ago and have absolutely no idea if it's correct or not.

There's also two conflicting versions of the origins of mayo, and I really don't feel like (or have time to) check wiki and sift through the references. Why don't I have time right now? Cus I'll be cooking a batch of pappadams in less than 5 minutes so I'd better get a move on.

Now I know that you could just open up a jar of mayo and add a squeeze of wasabi paste (mmmmmmmmm... wasabi...) and call it good. But if you did that then you'd be getting all the preservatives and chemical crap from the jar of mayo. And that's what we're trying to avoid.

BTW, this calls for egg yolks. Make sure you save the egg whites for meringue. Oh, the chooks down here aren't fed growth hormones either.


Wasabi Mayo


What you need:
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp wasabi paste (or more!)
1/2 cup olive oil


What you do:
Chuck everything but the olive oil in a small food processor. Process on low for a min or two. Then slowly add the olive oil while the processor is running.

Hey, now just how darned easy was that? Of course, you can add any sort of other herbs or spices you want, but the wasabi paste pretty much makes the taste and I've found other additions to be a waste as they don't really come through flavour-wise.

Enjoy!

I'm off to fry a batch of pappadams to have with tonight's Mango Chicken Curry. Ta.

2 comments:

Arvay said...

I believe what you are referring to is aioli--the French sauce that has its own name although it is essentially just garlic mayonnaise. You can make a pretty good version with mayo from the store--just pound up garlic in a mortar, then stir in the mayo. Voila! Great with artichokes!

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

Never thought of garlic-mayo with artichokes... hmmmmmm...