Vegan mayo and aquafaba

Aquafaba is a recent discovery in an area where one might think there is nothing fundamentally new to discover. Aquafaba is the name given to what is essentially the leftover cooking liquid when one boils chickpeas, and what has been recently discovered  is that it can replace egg whites in a variety of culinary preparations, but sweet and savory. This post is about its use in preparing mayonnaise.

Let me tell you: before you try it, you will be very skeptical; when you actually make it and taste the final product, you will feel as if you had performed a magic trick. Not only the mayo does not have the faintest taste of chickpeas but it may taste better than the egg-based alternative. Let me take that back: it does not necessary taste better, it's just different. But if you were given the mayo to eat you would never guess how it was made. You'd probably say it's an incredibly light spread, much easier to digest, with virtually the same creaminess and mouthfeel that we associate with mayo. Additionally, you don't have to worry about than potential dangers associated with using raw eggs and the mayo keeps for a much longer time. It's also much easier on your cholesterol!

I've always used the cooking liquid that comes with canned chickpeas not from legumes I've cooked myself. I try to look for cans that in the list of ingredients only have chickpeas, salt and water, ie, no additives. Some brands use kombu seaweed to cook the legumes, and that aquafaba probably results in an interesting mayo, although I haven't tried it.

My experience is that you can use essentially the same technique for preparing mayo with eggs, just replacing the eggs with roughly the same volume of aquafaba. There are two basically different approaches: by hand and using a blender/food processor, and they both work with this egg substitute.

By far, the most foolproof method I know is the immersion blender technique:

- 1/4 cup of aquafaba
- splash of vinegar or lemon
- 1/2 tsp of of yellow mustard
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 cup of light tasting vegetable oil, eg sunflower

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. Use the cup that comes with the stick blender, or something similar, ie, tall and roughly with the same diameter as the blender. Add all ingredients to the cup, then the oil. Let the oil rise to the top and carefully insert the blender until it touches the base of the cup. Then, start pulsing: short intermittent pulses. Once you notice that the mixture is thickening, start slowly pulling the blender up as you pulse. At some point, you can push and pull the blender to fully emulsify the ingredients. Once you reach your preferred texture, adjust the seasoning. Only when the mayo is chilled you can really tell if it's properly seasoned, so don't overdo it. Sometimes, the mayo is too thick and one can dilute it with a few drops of water.