September 08, 2022

Mayo Battle

In season 4, Alton presents two mayo recipes: Mayonnaise and Party Mayonnaise – both of them mayo, but with some slight differences.

The first – Mayonnaise – seems like the “traditional” mayo completely whisked by hand and adding oil in drop by drop for a good portion of it. I started with this, and once I was done it felt like my whisking arm was going to fall off.

The second one – Party Mayonnaise – was much easier since it was done in a food processor. While the first recipe had lemon juice and all safflower oil, party mayonnaise called for lime juice and a few tablespoons chile oil. I didn’t have chile oil so I made some by heating oil in a skillet and pouring it into a bowl with a couple tablespoons of red chile flakes.

From there it was just a couple seconds in the food processor and done.

The question was how to taste mayonnaise – what recipes feature mayo? My first thought was egg salad, so we went with that first.

They tasted basically the same, so the second plan was BLTs. I didn’t get a picture of the side-by-side tasting BLTs but that did the trick – we were able to taste the difference. They are both really good, but of course the one that’s a huge pain to make (literally) was the winner. I’m digging the idea of homemade mayo so maybe next time I’ll try the first recipe in the food processor. Best of both worlds maybe?

Mayonnaise

• Crowd: 4/5
• Ease: 2/5
• Arm almost fell off
• Used safflower oil
• Had perfect mayonnaise consistency

Party Mayonnaise

• Crowd: 3/5
• Ease: 3/5
• Made my own chile oil with safflower oil and red pepper flakes
• Used safflower oil
• Had the consistency of yogurt