Comfort Food: Mayonnaise!

For many who follow my blog you get it, I like food. So here is a useful culinary tool that has a million uses, you probably have one in your refrigerator right now: the egg. I try to get mine at the Mars tér farmer's market so that they are fresh. One other trait I love about the eggs I've gotten in Hungary is the color: a yellow so deep it's orange.

With an egg at the ready many sauces are at your fingertips, not the least being mayonnaise. One lonely egg yolk, a few drops of water, a pinch of salt, and a touch of lemon juice are the beginning of the emulsion process. Once they are all worked together it will look like this:

Once this has happened adding one drop of oil, sunflower of course, at a time while whisking will start the emulsion. By slowly adding the entire quantity, about a cup per egg yolk, mayonnaise will form before your eyes.

Of course once you have mayonnaise it can be used as a base for other sauces or dressings, or be paired with some leftover meat like chicken or fish. My target was a can of tuna fish sent to me from home. Tuna fish sandwiches are a childhood favorite of mine, but oddly enough this was contradictory of the fact that I hated mayonnaise as a kid. In fact I still do, because I don't have a taste for most mayonnaise on the market, but now that I make my own I don't worry about that anymore.