Lacey, this is not a dumb question at all! You can cook fish in citrus without ever putting heat to it. Vinegar is acidic and I can completely understand your train of thought here.

That being said, the egg is still raw. You have to heat an egg to 138° to pasteurize the yolk. While this is something you can do in your mayo making process, it is not something I do. I use eggs from a local farm that I trust, and I feel comfortable with using conventional eggs on occasion to make mayo as well. While the risk is fairly low for any issues arising with the raw egg, you just have to decide what you feel comfortable with.

I hope that helps!

As long as it's a powder, you'll be fine - you just don't want to use the actual seeds, as it won't be smooth!

Will yellow mustard seed powder work?

Thank you

I don't, but I don't think it matters. The idea is just to bring them to room temp, and have them all the same temp when you make the emulsion. Hope that helps!

Hi Dana,

A liquid instead of a powder may affect it, but I don't think it would cause it to not come together at all. The two most important things are making sure that all your ingredients are the same temperature, and getting the immersion blender all the way to the bottom of the jar. If you're not using an immersion blender, you have to use the alternate method, otherwise it will not come together.

If you do it again, and its still separated, you can start from the beginning and use the separated mayo from the first round as the "oil" for the recipe, and make it again, and it should work. Hope that helps!