Saturday, June 4, 2011

Salmon Tacos with Homemade Yuzu Mayonnaise

I've been sooooo busy lately that I almost didn't enter this month's Kitchen Play contest. Then I spied a recipe for salmon and I thought, heck yeah, I've got leftover salmon from a post I haven't published yet.

The original recipe was for a salmon salad with a bearnaise sauce, but I was more in a taco state of mind. The sponsor of the contest is Safest Choice Eggs, so I needed eggs in the recipe, right? Those eggs are pasteurized, so they're perfectly safe for raw use. Pretty cool idea, hmmm?

So anyway, I decided to make a mayonnaise instead of a bearnaise with my eggs.

A long, long time ago I decided to jump out of an airplane. You know, with a parachute. For sport. And before we were allowed to jump, we all had to take a class that explained all the horrible things that could possibly go wrong, and what to do if one of those things happens.

Then the instructor explained that it's pretty rare for a student or new jumper to get hurt because they follow all the rules. If you're supposed to release the main chute and deploy the spare the student will do that because that's what you're supposed to do and you're scared out of you mind NOT to do what you're told.

But an experienced jumper will sometimes try to fix a problem or do things that aren't recommended, because they think the know it all. And the the ground comes up and hits them really hard.

My mayonnaise was sort of like that. I've made plenty of mayonnaises before. Whipping by hand, with a food processor, with a blender, or with a stick blender. I should be able to make mayonnaise in my sleep. It's been a while since I made any, but how much could I forget?

Yeah, well, I guess I must have forgotten something because the first few times I tried, it didn't work. And I made one heck of a mess. Let's just say that I have mayonnaise in my hair, and leave it at that, hmmm?

Duh. It's not that hard. If you ... you know ... follow the very simple directions.

The recipe here is just for the mayonnaise. The tacos were just blue corn tortillas, lettuce from the farmer's market and leftover grilled salmon. The yuzu mayonnaise added a nice citrus note to the tacos.

Yuzu Mayonnaise

2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon yuzu* juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard
1/2 cup light-flavored oil (more or less, as needed)

Put the eggs, yuzu juice, salt and mustard in your blender, and blend until the eggs begin to thicken and become a little lighter in color.

Add the oil in a thin, very slow stream until the mixture thickens and becomes a mayonnaise. You might need more oil. Probably not less.

I've seen recipes that call for up to a cup of oil per egg yolk, but that seems like a lot to me. Or maybe they were giant-yolked eggs. Mine thickened nicely with the half-cup of oil, and it had a nice citrus taste.

*Yuzu is a Japanese citrus that tastes something like lemon. You could use lemon instead, no problem. I got my yuzu juice, along with a couple other interesting citrus juices from Marx Foods as a sample.
Yum

1 comment:

Justin Marx said...

You are not alone in the aioli adventure department. At a recent photpshoot (after having thought I mastered the aioli technique) I must have gone through a dozen eggs and 32 oz of oil in order to make a successful batch. Damn you, Aioli!

Way to persevere, Donna. Looks like a hit-the-spot kind of snack.

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