Ashley Strickland Freeman follows the Duke's Real Mayonnaise diet.
Whether it is to make a three-layer strawberry-rhubarb cake or rum-spiked Bananas Foster bread moist, peach-filled crepes extra soft or Nashville hot chicken pieces tender and serve them with fluffy buttermilk cornbread waffles, the zippy condiment is her secret ingredient.
"I grew up with Duke's and really didn't know about any other kind of mayo until I went to culinary school in New York," says the Charleston, South Carolina, resident. "It was the only mayo my family ever used."
After earning a degree in journalism and one in culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute in New York City, she worked at the Oxmoor House test kitchens in Birmingham, Alabama. That's when she realized she could pursue a career in food without being a chef. So she turned to writing recipes for cookbooks and becoming a food editor and food stylist.
That led to the dream of writing her own cookbook, but she didn't have a platform or a theme. It was Duke's that came to her rescue.
"One day, I opened up my refrigerator door and there was a mayo jar staring me in my face. A light bulb went off," she recalls.
Three years later, "The Duke's Mayonnaise Cookbook" (Grand Central Publishing; June 2020) came to fruition. Bold and beautiful, the 75-recipe book pops with the company's signature colors. Sunshine yellow, black and red are splashed throughout its chapters along with illustrations of the mayo jar. Renowned chefs share their "spiels" of how and why they fell in love with Duke's.
The cookbook is packed with both classic and unexpected recipes. Instead of a Southern standard - slices of spongy white bread slathered with mayo and stacked with sliced tomatoes - she features an avocado BLT sandwich layered with basil mayo and built on thick sourdough bread. A mayo-based chicken salad, studded with salted pistachios, dried sweetened cranberries and green onions, takes on a curry accent softened with honey. Generous amounts of mayonnaise make their way into chocolate chip cookies and a plum upside-down cake. There's even a pappardelle bolognese.
"I always loved my grandmother's Bolognese sauce and I wanted to have a recipe that acknowledged her. But you don't put mayo in a spaghetti sauce, and so I incorporated it into the pasta," she says.
Freeman wanted to include familiar recipes and nouvelle ones.
"I looked at the content as a whole and kept in mind the difficulty of the recipe and what it would taste like. But as a food stylist, it also was important to me to make sure it was just as beautiful as it was tasty," she says.
Although the tangy and creamy Duke's is ingrained in her life, Freeman says she knows little about what goes into the mayo other than it has egg yolks, some vinegar and no sugar. Though Duke's actual recipe is shrouded in secrecy, she shares the story of how its creator, homemaker Eugenia Duke, built a roaring business. It all began in her Greenville, South Carolina, kitchen in 1917, when she began selling sandwiches to hungry soldiers training at nearby Camp Sevier during World War I.
"After selling her 11,000th sandwich, she purchased a delivery truck to help distribute the sandwiches that were in such high demand," Freeman writes. "The sandwiches were so popular that years later, after the war, soldiers would write to Eugenia requesting that she share her sandwich recipes and send jars of her homemade mayonnaise."
Five years later, her best salesman convinced her to focus on the mayo and sell it as a separate product. She sold her business in 1929 to Virginia-based C.F. Sauer Co., which expanded the product line and its reach geographically. The company changed hands last year and is now owned by North Carolina-based Falfurrias Capital Partners, an equity firm.
All through the 100-plus years, the recipe has remained the same, according to Duke's.
If Freeman were to make a mayo, it would be like Duke's, featuring egg yolks and not whole eggs, a mild, neutral oil, white vinegar or lemon juice, absolutely no sugar and just a little seasoning, she says. "The simpler, the better."
For her cookbook, it was all Duke's all the time. She started with 100 or so recipes and whittled them down to 75. She left out a blondie recipe as she already had picked a fudgy brownie with peppermint frosting. An artichoke recipe with aioli was left out as it was too similar to the grilled okra with tomato aioli, which she liked better.
She says she didn't get any help from Duke's. There was no free mayo and she used her own kitchen. "I only got their blessings."
She used 26 48-ounce jars to test the 75 recipes over a six-month period. Not all of them worked at the get-go. The baking recipes all took her multiple tries. She tested the banana bread at least six times and a gingerbread Bundt cake 10 times before she got them just right.
"This is where my recipe development and testing knowledge came in handy," Freeman says.
There were times when she tested three or four recipes a day. In the process, she converted her husband - a mayo hater.
So will she write a "Duke's Mayonnaise Cookbook: Part 2" or she is mayo-ed out? Absolutely and no, she says, resoundingly.
"After six months of recipe testing and food styling, I had to take a little bit of a break. But after a month passed, mayo was back in my diet," she says, laughing.
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TARRAGON CRAB CAKES
PG tested
Getting the most out of crab cakes means putting the least into them. All the lump crabmeat needs is some mayonnaise, fresh breadcrumbs and tarragon to end up as chunky, delicious cakes. Dab on some homemade lemon shallot tartar sauce and they will taste like heaven.
Lemon Shallot Tartar Sauce
1/2 cup Duke's Mayonnaise
2 tablespoons minced dill pickles
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
In a small bowl, stir together all the ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to serve or up to 2 days.
Makes about 3/4 cup.
For crab cakes
1 pound lump crabmeat
1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
1/2 cup Duke's mayonnaise
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Lemon wedges
Fresh flat-leaf parsley, tarragon and/or watercress for garnish, optional
Gently pick through the crabmeat to remove any shell or cartilage. Place in a medium bowl with the breadcrumbs.
Stir together mayonnaise, parsley, tarragon, lemon zest and paprika. Pour over the crabmeat mixture and toss gently to combine. Shape the mixture into 8 patties.
In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook crab cakes for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until browned and heated through. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with lemon wedges and Lemon Shallot Tartar Sauce. Garnish with herbs if desired.
- "The Duke's Mayonnaise Cookbook" by Ashley Strickland Freeman (Grand Central Publishing; June 2020)
BUFFALO CHICKEN SLIDERS
PG tested
These chicken sliders will cast a spell on you. Extremely moist from the mayonnaise, piquantly spicy from the Buffalo sauce, they are delightful on a multiseed bun with a homemade blue cheese sauce.
Blue Cheese Sauce
1/2 cup Duke's mayonnaise
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 tablespoon whole milk
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
In a small bowl, stir together all the ingredients. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Makes about 1 cup.
For chicken sliders
11/2 pounds ground chicken
4 tablespoons Buffalo sauce, or more if desired, divided
1 tablespoon Duke's mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
12 slider buns
1 cup celery leaves or torn Bibb lettuce leaves
1 cup matchstick-cut carrots
In a medium bowl, combine ground chicken, 2 tablespoons of Buffalo sauce, mayonnaise and garlic powder. With wet hands, shape the mixture into 12 equal patties (it will be sticky).
In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook patties for 2 to 3 minutes on one side until browned. Turn patties and cook for 2 to 3 more minutes until they're done, Baste with the remaining Buffalo sauce.
To serve, spread blue cheese sauce on the bottom of the buns. Top the patty with celery leaves or torn Bibb lettuce and carrots. Replace the top of the buns and serve.
Makes 12 sliders.
- Adapted from "The Duke's Mayonnaise Cookbook" by Ashley Strickland Freeman (Grand Central Publishing; June 2020)
BANANAS FOSTER BREAD
PG tested
The mayonnaise makes this New Orleans-inspired banana bread extra moist. But the goodness does not end there. The bread is topped with a browned butter rum glaze.
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 or 4 large ones)
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup salted butter, melted
1 large egg
2/3 cup Duke's mayonnaise
3 tablespoons golden or dark rum
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 banana, sliced lengthwise
Browned Butter-Rum Glaze (recipe follows)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, beat together mashed bananas, brown sugar, egg, mayonnaise, rum and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth.
In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to the banana mixture and stir just until combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Top with the sliced banana, cut sides up. Bake for 60 to 65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let the bread cool in the pan on a wire rack. Make the Browned Butter-Rum Glaze while the bread cools.
Remove the bread from the pan and drizzle with the glaze.
Makes 8 servings.
- "The Duke's Mayonnaise Cookbook" by Ashley Strickland Freeman (Grand Central Publishing; June 2020)
BROWNED BUTTER-RUM GLAZE
2 tablespoons salted butter
2 tablespoons golden or dark rum
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Cook butter in a small skillet over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, swirling the pan occasionally, until the milk solids begin to brown and smell nutty.
Remove the pan from the heat and carefully stir in the rum. Return to the heat and cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute longer to cook off the alcohol. (If using a gas burner, carefully flambe the mixture.)
Transfer the glaze to a small bowl and whisk in sugar until smooth.
Makes about 1/2 cup.