When I was growing up, my mother used to get into a frenzy and whip up a mayonnaise or a tartar sauce every so often, usually to go with crumb-fried fish; but, as calories, cholesterol and other such epiphanies found their way into my vocabulary, mayonnaise gradually faded from my menu. In all of my married life, I have made it only twice, and the second time was last Saturday.
My mother had always dramatized the making of mayonnaise. You can’t use an electric egg beater, she would remonstrate; you must use a copper-bottom or glass bowl, she’d insist; add the oil drop-by-drop, she’d add, threateningly; oh, and you can’t make it if there’s a thunderstorm impending or in progress…
What next, I wondered. Would she demand a white hair from a vampire bat plucked by a sparrow at noon on the day after the full moon…
All the same, when I started making mayonnaise on Saturday, I used a metal saucepan on the basis that it was copper-bottomed on the outside. I started with a wire-whisk (since for the life of me I can’t get my hands on a good, old-fashioned hand-held egg-beater) and two egg yolks and obediently set about adding oil drop-by-drop. After working at it for a while, I figured it was coming along nicely, so I started adding oil by the dollop, and switched to the electric egg-beater. In minutes, all my hard work was undone. The mixture turned into a curdled, sordid mess, and the more I worked at it, the more the egg and oil separated and sat disgustedly side-by-side like an old married couple who had just finished squabbling about what to watch on TV and were now forced to watch what neither of them wanted, in the name of compromise.
Adding lemon juice, whether the recommended approach or not, had no beneficial effect. I looked out the window, but the sky was a customary clear blue and the sun shone brightly: a thunderstorm clearly was not in progress and did not appear imminent either – at least not for the next several months.
There was only one thing to be done: start afresh. I dispatched Amit summarily to the nearest shop to fetch me more eggs. Six would be good, but two will do, I told him, and made short shrift of his reluctance to tear himself away from the computer and his even greater inclination to tarry and listen to the song that was playing on the radio. Meanwhile, I kept stirring the sorry mess, in the hope that it would become a little less revolting.
When the eggs arrived, I added one yolk to the existing mixture and worked it slowly, reverting to the wire whisk. To no avail: the curdled mixture corrupted my fresh egg yolk in no time. My mother had always emphasized that a messed up mayonnaise could only be remedied by starting afresh, in a clean bowl. Wearily, I started afresh. Having abandoned the electric egg-beater completely, I used the wire whisk to first add oil to the fresh egg yolk, and later add the curdled mess to the fresh mixture. And, wonder of wonders, I got a mayonnaise out of it. Despite all indications to the contrary, the curdled mess integrated into the fresh mixture with no detrimental effect at all. Half an hour later, I turned the fresh mayonnaise back into the original bowl, which was by then mostly empty, and proceeded to add lemon juice and seasoning. It tasted fine, especially after I had tossed in finely chopped tomato, onion, green chillies, and coriander – and even more so after I had fried fish to dip in it.
Which leads me, inescapably, to two terrible conclusions:
- Sometimes, my mother really does know best (sigh).
- Sometimes, starting afresh (and adding egg yolk) can clean up the ugliest mess you ever made in your life.
Filed under: personal | Tagged: cooking, food, mayonnaise
