One of my favorite food memories involves helping my mother make mayonnaise by hand. She used the juice of a native Filipino citrus, suhá in Ilonggo (kalamansi in Pilipino), which made a fragrant dressing for salad.Today I made mayonnaise American-style—with a Cuisinart. I used James Beard recipe from the booklet included when I bought the machine 20 years ago. One whole egg, 1 Tb vinegar, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and 1 1/4 C oil. I also added 1/4 C. Dijon mustard. What took my mother and me half an hour to beat by hand, the Cuisinart did in uner a minute!
The result however is what not good as I remember. My mother used only the yolk and dribbling the oil was a slow, laborious process. She added kalamansi juice in drops only after the emulsion had formed and told me to keep adding the juice only when the mayonnaise felt too stiff. She used the juice only as the emulsion was able to incorporate it. Beard's recipe was also too salty for me. Next time I'll use half a teaspoon salt and one cup oil.
Chicken salad is often made with enough mayonnaise to make it moist. The moisture is frankly just mayonnaise. I used much less mayonnaise but added small dollops here and there upon serving to add variety and taste. I could have added sour cream, the additive cooks use to make their salads more moist, but I didn't want to add unnecessary fat. Scallions would have been a stronger herb taste but all I had were chives from the garden. Chives do make stunning placement when balanced on top of the salad.
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