gleaned this fact long ago, which is one of the
reasons mayonnaise is so cheap: the most expensive
component—the eggs—makes up only a tiny
percentage of the finished product. In order to do
this without the emulsion breaking, you need to be
mindful of the ratio of oil to water. As the
mayonnaise becomes thicker and thicker and is on
the verge of breaking (just after the “pasty” stage),
if you incorporate some water into the mix to
reestablish the correct ratio, you can then continue
to add more oil. Using this process, I’ve managed to
make over a gallon of mayo with a single egg yolk.
That said, the ideal mayonnaise needs to have a
certain amount of egg yolk in it for flavoring
purposes—a mostly oil mayo just doesn’t taste right.
I find that the ideal ratio is a single large egg yolk
for each cup of mayonnaise.

MAYONNAISE VERSUS AIOLI

Any time I dine out at a fancy restaurant and see

the chef using the word “aioli” when he or she really
means “mayonnaise,” I make it a point to inform the
waiter, my wife, and perhaps a few of the
surrounding tables of the chef’s loose lexical morals
and the liberties he or she is taking by obfuscating
two of the world’s great sauces. The word “aioli”
comes from the Occitan and is a contraction of ai