Bacon Mayonnaise!

I had been threatening to do it for weeks, and I finally did it. I took my leftover bacon grease and turned it into mayonnaise. I love mayonnaise, but I hardly ever eat it anymore because it's impossible to find a commercial brand that isn't made with a bad vegetable oil. I don't like homemade mayo made with extra virgin olive oil as it tastes far too strong. Light olive oil makes a palatable mayo, but light olive oil has undergone some pretty severe processing, making it not ideal either. Enter the bacon fat!



I didn't bother to strain my drippings which is why my mayonnaise is speckled, but the taste is still outrageously good. :) I'm not going to try to tell you how to make this stuff, because it's pretty finicky, so I'll direct you to the original recipe I used, which you can find here: http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/introducing-a-recipe-contest-with-prizes/ The original comes from a book called simply "Fat" by Jennifer McLagan.

I had to go through some calisthenics to get mine to turn out. I started it in a food processor, but there was so little volume from one egg yolk that it wouldn't reach the blades. So I had to scrape everything into a blender. Then I had to add another egg yolk to get a good emulsion going. Then I had to add more lemon juice to cut through the extreme savoriness of the bacon. The end product is delightful though. :) I think I'm going to make chicken salad with it.