Le Grand Aïoli | Garlic Mayonnaise with Accompaniments

Any seasonal vegetables and seafood can go in le grand aïoli.

Four to five dirty bowls were sitting on the kitchen counter in various states of a broken aïoli—oily and runny and separate. My false starts in making the le grand aïoli were on full display. Droplets of egg yolk and oil were scattered everywhere around the whisks lying supine on the cluttered counter. This hardly looked like a normal, busy, organized kitchen. If this is a commercial kitchen, it would be abruptly shut down should a restaurant inspector show up at that moment. Clearly, something—or someone was off the rails.

If there was a tape, it’d be replaying something like this. Starting with one egg yolk, I whisked it in a mixing bowl together with the minced garlic and some salt. Next I slowly mixed in the oils. Soon an emulsion developed, something in the form of a salad dressing, but nothing like the creamy texture of mayonnaise. Broken aïoli is nothing new; I’ve coped with it before. Just start over with another egg. Well, I must have repeated these steps a few more times. Same results. “I can’t do it anymore,” my frayed nerves screamed in protest.

What happened next was: I had to stop in the midst of this chaos to give my husband a ride to pick up his car. In retrospect, that was a good thing and gave me a chance to regroup. Before I left the kitchen, I was gripped with immense frustration.

Later, when I checked the clock, It’s seven in the evening. There was dinner to prepare and it’s time to get my act together. My arms were exhausted, can’t ask them to do more whisking. So I grabbed the food processor, put in two egg yolks to get the machine going. Without much thoughts, I just let it rip for a little while. Then I dribbled in the separated oils from the broken aïoli through the sprout while the machine was running. Lo and behold, the aïoli came together like the way it’s supposed to. No drama!

The accompaniments to the garlic aïoli: the blanched vegetables and shrimps were relatively easy to prepare. In the end, the assembled le grand aïoli turned out to be a marvellous and eye-popping celebration of summer, my struggles notwithstanding.

Don’t forget to check and see whether our friends at Cook-the-book-Fridays have better luck with the aïoli.

With cool head prevailing, I’ve learned a thing or two about making aïoli:

• It takes work to make an emulsion. Let the food processor be your friend and skip the manual whisking. First of all, the running motor helps to disperse and absorb the oils more quickly than the biceps could. Furthermore, the food processor uses its mechanical power to break and form the emulsion again when you have to rescue a broken sauce.

• Start the emulsion slowly and carefully. Add oil only after an emulsion has developed some viscosity. Then add the oil very gradually to begin with, drop by drop or small spoonful at a time, until well incorporated. Be patient.

• All the ingredients should be at room temperature. Warmth speeds the transfer of emulsifiers from the yolk particles to the oil droplet surfaces. Temperature is one of the key ingredients.

• I’ve found it easier to stabilize the emulsion when you add a small amount of liquids, like lemon juice, to the egg yolks from the start. I don’t have any issue with recipes like the lemon-tarragon aïoli.

This is how Harold McGee explains it in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. “Though cookbooks often say that the ratio of oil to egg yolk is critical, that one yolk can only emulsify a half-cup or cup of oil. this just isn’t true. A single yolk can emulsify a dozen cups of oil or more. What is critical is the ratio of oil to water: there must be enough of the continuous phase for the growing population of oil droplets to fit into. For every volume of oil added, the cook should provide about a third of that volume in the combination of yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, water, or some other water-based liquid.”

Postscript: A fool-proof food processor method to make 1 3/4 cups garlic mayonnaise

1 whole egg + 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice + pinch of salt & pepper + 1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic + 1 1/2 cup olive oil

With the metal blade in place in the food processor, add the egg, vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic to the container. Process until blended, about 3 to 4 seconds. Continue processing and gradually pour oil through feed tube, slowly at first. As the sauce thickens, the sound of the machine will become deeper. Taste for additional vinegar, salt and pepper. Transfer to a covered container and refrigerate until needed. This mayonnaise will hold for a week.