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The Mayonnaise Show | The French Chef Season 6 | Julia Child — Transcript

by Julia Child on PBS · 4,264 words · 518 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:02[ Blender whirring ]
0:03[ Mixer whirring ]
0:08-What a busy kitchen!
0:11We're all making mayonnaise today on "The French Chef."
0:18♪♪
0:28♪♪
0:38-"The French Chef" is made possible
0:40by a grant from Hills Bros. Coffee, Inc.,
0:43and by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation.
0:50-Welcome to "The French Chef." I'm Julia Child.
0:55You know, I just don't think there's anything
0:57that's any better than homemade mayonnaise.
1:01It's just so, I don't know, thick and eggy and lovely
1:05and it tastes so good.
1:08The only trouble with it is once you start making your own,
1:11you'll never be happy with anything else because...
1:15I don't know.
1:16There's something about that homemade flavor
1:18because you can make it any way you want,
1:21and it's just so delicious, and it's terribly easy to make.
1:25All you have to know is you have to know
1:28about understanding the egg yolk because all mayonnaise is,
1:33is just egg yolks and oil beaten together
1:37to make a thick sauce, like mayonnaise,
1:42and you can make it in all kinds of ways.
1:44You can make it in the blender, or you can make it in the mixer,
1:49or you can use this funny machine
1:52that has a cover with a funnel and a handle,
1:56and then underneath is a paddle, and it's a little bit slow,
1:59but it makes mayonnaise very well.
2:02Or, you can make it very easily by hand.
2:06And the first way we're going to do is making mayonnaise by hand
2:11because there's the whole problem with the egg yolk.
2:15Making it by hand, you can really spy on the egg yolk,
2:18that dreadful monster which so many people find very difficult.
2:23And we're going to make 2 1/2 cups of mayonnaise,
2:27and we want to have three egg yolks.
2:30And one thing, if you have a lot of egg yolks left over,
2:33there's nothing better than to make mayonnaise.
2:34Suppose you've made a lot of meringue desserts and vacherin
2:39and you had all these egg yolks left over
2:41so that you could make mayonnaise with it.
2:44And if you've never made mayonnaise by hand before,
2:47don't use less than three egg yolks
2:49because if you use, say, one or two egg yolks,
2:52you'll find that the mayonnaise is a little hard to take,
2:55and if you use three, four, five, six or seven,
2:57you can make it very quickly
2:58because there is enough volume in it.
3:02And if...
3:06One problem is sometimes
3:08if you try making mayonnaise in the wintertime
3:10and your kitchen is cold,
3:11you'll find it's very difficult to make,
3:13so your first precaution is to warm your mixing bowl.
3:18That just means put it in warm water and rinse it out
3:21and just have it just so it's about as warm as your hand,
3:23and then when you put your egg yolks in,
3:25even if your egg yolks are cold,
3:30that will warm them up a little bit
3:32because egg yolks can be a little balky.
3:35I think that's the trouble, that they're balky,
3:37but if you treat them nicely
3:40and sturdly you're going to be able
3:42to make them do just what you want.
3:44And the first thing you do is after you had your warm bowl,
3:48you take a big whip
3:50and you start beating them up, and you notice
3:52I've got my bowl on a wet potholder.
3:54That just holds it nicely.
3:56And this is the first point in making mayonnaise by any method
4:01is that you beat your egg yolks first
4:03until they sort of get thick and sticky
4:07and rather pale yellow.
4:10This is the whole business, and if you just master them
4:13and beat them up,
4:14then they're going to act the way you want them to.
4:18And if you're doing it in an electric mixer,
4:20you do just exactly the same thing.
4:22You can get a nice big mixer, a big beater,
4:28and this is just about a minute of beating,
4:30and you see they've just thickened slightly
4:33and they're going to thicken a little bit more
4:35when I put the flavoring in.
4:38But always be sure to take this precaution.
4:41And then we have our preliminary flavoring.
4:43We have 1/2 teaspoon of salt,
4:47and then we have about 1/4 teaspoon of dry mustard,
4:52and both the salt and the dry mustard
4:54help the eggs to coagulate a little bit.
4:58And then you beat in just a drop or two
5:01of either wine vinegar or lemon juice,
5:05or a bit of both, and I'm going to put in...
5:08I like a combination of both, so I'll beat in both
5:11a few drops of lemon juice and few drops of vinegar.
5:14And don't beat in too much at first.
5:16This is just to lighten the mixture,
5:19and then beat it up again.
5:21I don't know why it is,
5:22but this dry mustard helps everything to coagulate,
5:28and once that the egg yolks have been beaten,
5:31then they are ready to receive the oil.
5:37You see, it looks almost like a mayonnaise now,
5:42and then at this point,
5:43you are ready to start beating in your oil,
5:47but you have to decide what flavor you want
5:49for your mayonnaise.
5:51I always thought mayonnaise was made only with olive oil,
5:53but when I got to Paris,
5:55I found that they used huile [speaks French]
5:58which is a tasteless cooking oil,
6:02and that was because if you have too fruity an olive oil, say,
6:06and you're eating it with cold lobster, a delicate cold fish,
6:09you'll find that your mayonnaise has masked
6:12the whole flavor of the fish.
6:14And so you want to decide what you're going to serve
6:16the mayonnaise on
6:17so that it will be a perfect blending.
6:20Down in Marseille, where I used to live,
6:22they always used a very strong, fruity olive oil,
6:25and they'd beat a lot of garlic into it
6:26and you couldn't taste anything but the garlic mayonnaise.
6:30And what I usually do is use part tasteless cooking oil,
6:34and then part a very nice light French olive oil,
6:39but the whole point of making your own
6:41is that you can make your own flavor
6:42and you can use the really good oil
6:46that you would like to use with it.
6:48And you have your second point.
6:51The first one was beating the egg yolks, first,
6:53and then the second point is adding the oil
6:57because the oil has to be added just by little droplets at first
7:00because egg yolks have a very delicate digestion,
7:04and if you dump a lot of oil in,
7:05the egg yolk just refuses to digest,
7:08and the sauce refuses to thicken.
7:10And you can add the oil either by little teaspoonfuls
7:14or you can add it directly by the bottle,
7:17and you have to keep beating all the time that you add the oil.
7:22And this brings us up to the kind of whips you should use.
7:26Now, there are several sizes, and you should use a size
7:30of whip that's going to fit your bowl.
7:32Now, this is a little baby whip.
7:33It's a very cute thing,
7:35but it's only good for little baby things.
7:37It wouldn't be good in a big bowl.
7:39And this is a medium whip, which is about 9 inches long
7:44and about 2 inches across,
7:46and this is good for doing things
7:47such as mixing canned soup in a small saucepan.
7:53And then you have your great big balloon whip,
7:56and this is 16 inches long and it's 4 1/2
8:00to 5 inches across here, and this is wonderful
8:03if you're going to make a gallon of mayonnaise in a big bowl.
8:06I usually use this for beating up egg whites,
8:09and it's marvelous.
8:11And these three, these are all French whips,
8:14and they're made out of wires which have a tin wash on them.
8:18You can get other whips that are made out of stainless steel,
8:22and most every store nowadays carries wire whips,
8:27and if you have any trouble,
8:29go to a restaurant or kitchen supply store
8:32and they have all kinds.
8:34Now, in this bowl here, which is sort of a medium-ly large bowl,
8:38I have what I call a large whip, which is 12 inches long
8:41and about 2 1/2 inches here across.
8:46So now after the whip talk is done,
8:48we'll start adding the oil.
8:52And now your egg yolks are thick,
8:55and you start adding your oil very, very slowly at first,
8:59just in little droplets.
9:00Just a little tiny drop like that.
9:06Or you could add it just by little 1/4 teaspoon bits.
9:09And the trick in this is that you should keep your eye
9:13on the oil as you add it so that your hand won't slip.
9:17You don't have to look at what you're beating
9:19because you can't beat out over the bowl, so remember that.
9:23Keep your eye on the bottle, and then be beating.
9:27And at this first point you have to add about 1/2 cup of oil
9:32before the egg yolks...
9:34Before the sauce thickens,
9:36and this is your most delicate point,
9:39and you can't stop beating until your sauce has really thickened.
9:43So if your phone rings, you just have to pick up your mayonnaise
9:47and just beat it and take it to the telephone,
9:49or just don't answer it, and this doesn't take very long.
9:58See, that's beginning to thicken up,
10:02but even if you think it's gotten fairly thick,
10:05keep on just adding it a little bit at a time
10:08and then you never have any trouble,
10:09and as soon as it has thickened up,
10:13you can then add the oil in faster.
10:17And this is the same method
10:20if you're making mayonnaise in the electric mixer.
10:25You would do exactly the same thing.
10:26You would add the oil just a little tiny bit
10:28at a time first until it had thickened,
10:31and it makes no difference what direction you beat in.
10:34You can beat around in the other direction.
10:36And you don't have to be fast, fast, fast like that.
10:39Just about two strokes per minute...
10:42Per second.
10:44And notice the way I'm beating.
10:46I'm beating from my shoulder,
10:50and I'm not beating from my shoulder.
10:52I'm really beating from my elbow,
10:54and if you use that method,
10:56you can beat for a very long time.
11:01Now, look at the... See the consistency?
11:04That's nice and thick now,
11:06and you can say that the mayonnaise has taken,
11:09and the crisis is now over.
11:11You can stop and answer the telephone or go
11:13and get a drink of water.
11:15And at this point, you can then add the oil by dollops,
11:20about like a tablespoon, and just beat it all in,
11:24and then add another dollop and keep on adding it.
11:30And now you've come to your third point,
11:32which in the egg yolk's digestive process,
11:36not only does it have a delicate digestion,
11:38that it won't take a great deal of oil at first,
11:41but it also will only take a certain amount of oil.
11:45If you add more oil than the little yolk can stomach,
11:50then it just gets tired out and the emulsion breaks down
11:55and your sauce thins out, and your proportions of oil,
11:58the maximum proportion of oil you can add per egg yolk,
12:02is 3/4 of a cup,
12:04and to be on the safe side, add 1/2 cup.
12:08And we're making mayonnaise with three yolks
12:12so that we can add 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 of a cup of oil,
12:17and if you wanted to make a quart of sauce,
12:19you'd use five yolks and you'd use six for safety.
12:23Actually, I like quite a lot of yolk, egg yolks,
12:26in the sauce because it gives it a nice thick, yolky taste.
12:30And now when it gets too thick, because it is very thick now,
12:34just put in a few drops of vinegar, and that thins it out,
12:38and then you go on adding your oil.
12:42You see, after each big dollop, you just beat it
12:48so that the oil has absorbed again.
12:51So you see, I'm doing this slower than necessary
12:55because I'm talking so much, but actually you can whip up
12:58a quart of mayonnaise in less than 10 minutes.
13:02And you have -- The nice thing about doing it yourself,
13:05you have perfect control over the flavor
13:08and the kind of oil you use.
13:10And you don't have to add the full amount of oil.
13:13It just depends on whether you want a sort of nice paste,
13:17or whether you want a little more oily taste.
13:22And then after you've added as much oil as you want
13:24but not going over your 3/4 of a cup per yolk,
13:29you then taste it and see what else it needs.
13:34That's the nice thing.
13:36You can always keep tasting your own mayonnaise.
13:38Careful you don't eat it all up.
13:41And then at this point you probably want
13:43a little pepper in, and if you have...
13:46And use white pepper so that you won't have black specks in it,
13:52and if you have fresh herbs such as tarragon or chives,
13:55you could then put them in.
13:58And some people think
14:00that adding a spoonful of boiling water
14:02keeps the sauce from turning. I don't...
14:04You can put a spoonful of boiling water in if you want.
14:07I don't personally think it makes any difference at all.
14:13One of the nice herbs is tarragon,
14:16but that just depends on what you're going to
14:17serve the mayonnaise with.
14:20And then after you have made your mayonnaise,
14:24if you're not going to serve it right away, you want to be sure
14:27and put it in some kind of a container and cover it.
14:31Doesn't that look lovely and thick?
14:33It tastes so good, but an awful lot
14:35depends on choosing a good oil.
14:41And then you can't -- You have to be awfully careful
14:46with anything that has uncooked egg yolks in it
14:49because egg yolks, raw egg yolks at room temperature,
14:55are great breeding grounds for bacteria,
14:59so I think don't keep it out much more than a few minutes.
15:03Cover it and put it into the refrigerator.
15:06And one thing, though, when you find...
15:10In the refrigerator, I've found that it won't really keep.
15:14Really, I don't dare keep it more than a week
15:16just because of spoilage talk, but sometimes you find that
15:19if you have left it in the refrigerator,
15:22oh, 4 or 5 days, you take it out and stir it up, it thins out,
15:26and that's because the egg yolk is cold
15:28and its emulsion processes have broken down.
15:33And that brings us to the agony of turned mayonnaise,
15:37and the reasons it turns are, one, the mayonnaise is too cold,
15:41or two, you haven't beaten the eggs
15:43before you added the oil.
15:45Three, you added the oil too fast at first,
15:49so that the sauce never thickened up.
15:51Or four, you went over your proportions of egg yolks...
15:57I mean, of oil per egg yolk.
15:59But whatever reason... For whatever reason it turned,
16:03it's very easy to fix, and I'll show you how.
16:07Now, here is a turned sauce.
16:10It's just ghastly looking, and you beat it up
16:14and it just doesn't look like anything,
16:18but it's very easily fixed
16:20and what you need is some wet mustard.
16:25And use the Dijon type, the strong Dijon mustard,
16:28and put in about a teaspoon of the mustard,
16:34and then take your wire whip.
16:36Here, I'll take this wire whip,
16:38and add a spoonful of this ghastly sauce,
16:43just about 1/2 spoonful,
16:45and beat it until it begins to cream,
16:49and then add the sauce just by little droplets
16:53until this thickens up.
17:00And the wonderful thing about this
17:02is that it always works,
17:04and that's one reason I think if you're going to make mayonnaise
17:06and you're not doing it for any specific purpose,
17:09you just want to have some on hand,
17:11I wouldn't flavor it up too much at first
17:15because you may find,
17:17say, if you've kept it in the refrigerator,
17:21that it had turned
17:23and you were going to have to use the mustard.
17:25But that's the system you use.
17:27You just beat it in very slowly until it has all turned into
17:30a cream like that, and it absolutely always works.
17:33In fact, it's rather fun, I think,
17:35because it's such fun to bring it back again.
17:39And now we're going to do mayonnaise in the blender,
17:44and for the blender, you have to use a whole egg
17:48because if you use just egg yolks,
17:51you would find that the machine would clog.
17:54So put a whole egg in,
17:59and then start the blender high,
18:02and then you're going to have the same flavoring in
18:05of vinegar or lemon juice, mustard and salt.
18:13And you want to let this beat for about a minute first,
18:16and then if you have a blender that has a little top like this,
18:20it's very useful because that keeps it from splattering.
18:25So again, we want 1/4 teaspoon of salt...
18:32It was 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of mustard
18:37and a tablespoon of lemon juice or wine vinegar,
18:41and then let that beat again for a moment.
18:48And then you add your oil.
18:51And you if you don't have a splatter top,
18:55you'll have to hold a towel around it,
18:58or else you'll get it all over yourself.
19:02And then, again, the oil goes in by little driblets.
19:07That's the most important part,
19:08and just pour it right into the center.
19:15You'll find that by the time you've added a cup of oil,
19:20the sauce is very thick.
19:36You're really controlled about how much oil you add
19:40because after you've gotten the oil in
19:43and you look down inside the machine,
19:45the sauce isn't turning at all it's gotten so thick,
19:49and so you can't add any more oil.
19:50You could put, say, put in a little bit of water
19:52and thin it out and add a little bit more oil,
19:56but this makes just about a cup,
19:58or a little over a cup, of sauce,
20:01and this is the way it looks.
20:02See, it's lovely and thick and creamy.
20:07This is a much lighter mayonnaise
20:10than the handmade sauce,
20:14just because you're using a whole egg.
20:17And if you want a very light sauce, this is a lovely...
20:20A very nice one, but the only problem
20:22is you can only make 1 cup at a time,
20:24then you dump it out and just start all over again.
20:29And the nice thing about the blender sauce,
20:32that it's really pretty foolproof.
20:35Just a 6-year-old child could make it perfectly well,
20:42and plus, I think it's an extremely useful method to have
20:46because sometimes you just want to do something very quickly,
20:49and there it is.
20:50So now you have...
20:52Once you have your mayonnaise made,
20:55this is just all perfectly plain mayonnaise,
20:57you can do all kinds of things with it.
20:59For instance, you could, if you wanted to lighten it
21:01and have a little more volume,
21:03you could fold in some beaten egg whites,
21:05or you could stir in some sour cream,
21:09or you could beat in some fresh chopped herbs,
21:12and that would be called mayonnaise au fines herbes.
21:16Or you could stir in some gelatin
21:19that had been dissolved in warm water,
21:22and then just stir that in and use it
21:23for decorating cold fish or chicken,
21:26and that's called Mayonnaise Collée.
21:29Or you can make a green mayonnaise, which is rather fun,
21:32and that's called a mayonnaise verte.
21:36And all you do for that is just to stir
21:38a lot of cooked greenery into the mayonnaise,
21:44and you can use any kind of greenery you want.
21:46Just sort of roughly chop it
21:48and put it in some boiling water, just to soften it.
21:53It depends on what you use.
21:54You want it just to be cooked enough to soften it,
21:58and if you haven't got much else around,
22:01you usually always have some scallions,
22:05and you can use the part of that and then up into the green,
22:10which gives you a green color and flavoring.
22:13You can use spinach, which is very good.
22:16Watercress is lovely, but with your herbs,
22:19which are much more delicate, you wait until,
22:22oh, 4 or 5 minutes until this had softened,
22:26and then you'd put your herbs in
22:29and let them boil for just about a minute or two.
22:33So in other words, you could do...
22:35With your greenery, you can make just about
22:37what you would like in the way of green
22:40because you want flavor as well as color,
22:44and so you want to let this come up to a boil
22:46and just -- is blanching or wilting.
22:50And then as soon as that has cooked and wilted,
22:54you want to drain it out.
22:58And you just drain that out in the sink.
23:07And then if you have an electric blender,
23:09you just put it right into the blender.
23:12First, though, after draining it,
23:14it's a good idea to rinse it in cold water
23:18because the rinsing in cold water
23:19seems to set the greenery,
23:22and then that just goes right into the blender.
23:29And there should be enough water in it
23:31so it'll mash down all right.
23:44Whew.
23:47I guess I could have done it in there, yeah?
23:52Now, I don't like these things pureed too fine
23:57because I don't like it to look like baby food.
24:00And once when I went to a restaurant,
24:01I had what they called a green mayonnaise,
24:03and all they'd done was put green coloring in it,
24:06and that's not what you want because you want the flavor.
24:08You can always tell if it's green coloring
24:10because it has sort of a fake look,
24:12and it also doesn't have any consistency to it.
24:16And now be sure, after you've pureed it,
24:21that you press all the water out.
24:23I think I'll press this out in a bowl
24:26so you can see what it looks like.
24:31Because if you don't sieve it,
24:32you'll find that there's too much liquid in it,
24:34and you'll find that when you try to make a mayonnaise
24:37that the mayonnaise won't take
24:40because you've gotten too much water in your herbs,
24:42so just remember to drain it out.
24:46And then you have all this beautiful green liquid
24:50that you can use for,
24:52say, flavoring a soup or something else,
24:55and then you can just beat this into your ready mayonnaise.
25:02And in this case, I've got the mayonnaise in the mixer.
25:07And just add it in gradually,
25:10and if you wanted to make the mayonnaise in the blender,
25:17after you had sieved this out,
25:20you would then just put your green stuff back in
25:25and then put in your whole egg
25:28and put in your salt and mustard
25:33and beat it up for a little while and pour in your oil,
25:36and there you are.
25:38So you can do it either way.
25:42So you see, this is just a lovely color here.
25:51But you have to be...
25:53I hope this isn't too liquid now.
26:01So you want to, when you're going to add your greenery,
26:05be sure that you have a fairly thick mayonnaise.
26:09But that's a nice color just the way it is.
26:15And one thing about...
26:18The nice thing about the ready...
26:24The cooked herbs, is over the just plain herbs
26:28that you chop and put in,
26:32is that the herbs have been blanched
26:33so that the mayonnaise will keep a little longer.
26:37Sometimes if you put just chopped green herbs
26:40and put them in the mayonnaise
26:42and then keep the mayonnaise for a while,
26:44the herbs will turn slightly sour in it,
26:47so that if you have the mayonnaise like this,
26:51it will keep much better.
26:53And then put it in a nice serving bowl,
26:57and you're all ready to serve it,
26:59and there's so many terribly nice things that you can do
27:04with this green mayonnaise or just with plain mayonnaise,
27:08and I want you to see in the dining room
27:10how everything looks.
27:12Now green mayonnaise, I think, is just delicious with cold fish
27:17or with cold shrimps,
27:19or supposing you have cold, boiled lobster.
27:23You can just put a lovely dollop of green mayonnaise in that.
27:27Or suppose you were doing a little French hors d'oeuvre
27:30just with hard-boiled eggs and the little decorations,
27:34you could put the mayonnaise in that.
27:37And then with your plain mayonnaise,
27:40you can serve that with artichokes,
27:43or you could serve that with chicken, have a tomato
27:46and put the mayonnaise in, and there's your chicken.
27:51Now, I just can't believe you're going to have any trouble
27:56making mayonnaise now
27:58because you've really seen everything about it,
28:00and I've just gone over all the details.
28:02I just don't think you'll find any tricks,
28:05and it's a marvelous sauce to have on hand.
28:08Just look at all the things you can serve it on,
28:11and if you haven't anything to put it on,
28:13you can just eat it plain by great big spoonfuls.
28:18So that's all for today on "The French Chef."
28:21This is Julia Child.
28:23Bon appétit!
28:26-"The French Chef" has been made possible
28:27by a grant from the Polaroid Corporation
28:30and by a grant from Hill Bros. Coffee, Inc.
28:34♪♪
28:44♪♪
28:47-Julia Child is coauthor of the book
28:50"Mastering the Art of French Cooking."
28:52♪♪
29:02♪♪
29:12♪♪

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