#58: Bacon. Mayonnaise.

Inspired by a recipe in a cook book called Nom Nom Paleo. Read it and weep.

1/2 cup bacon fat
1/2 cup veggie oil
2 egg yolks
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp dijon
salt and pepper

My spin?

First, not calling it aioli when it is mayonnaise.  (I thrill to the notion of making your own mayonnaise.  Why put on airs when you do so by calling it something else?) Second, using just plain old canola oil, whereas the paleo folks called for macadamia nut oil, which I can only assume costs $37 a liter.  (I read an article the other day that crapped on the Whole 30 and other paleo diets as basically ways to justify status spending on high-end meats and oils in the face of millennia of accumulated wisdom on the nutritional and economical value of grains and legumes. Seeing a recipe call for half a cup of macadamia nut oil? Yeah.) Third, when making mayo I've always found that 2 egg yolks is better than 1. Finally, their recipe called for sherry vinegar, but I used the wife's home-brewed tarragon-infused vinegar because it is awesome and I use it on everything.

Had some today in a grilled tuna sandwich.  Ho ho, hey hey.  This is the business.

Step 1: you need your bacon fat to be liquid, unlike this...

...so you melt it and combine it with the oil:

Elsewhere you throw together the egg yolk and the garlic...

...and the vinegar and the mustard and salt and pepper...

...and then you whack that on up with a hand blender (or, you know, put it in a blender) and then start drizzling in the oil/fat mix. Keep whizzing and whapping and in a few seconds it smlops together and you gotcher mayonnaise.

Immediately dip radishes in it or just grab a spoon and get busy.