Aïoli

Velvety, luscious, garlicky mayonnaise—what the French call aïoli (pronounced eye-oh-lee)—is another sauce I use all the time: on sandwiches; with vegetables, both raw and cooked; with meat and fish; as the binder for chicken salad and egg salad; and as a base for sauces such as tartar sauce. Most children, even very young ones, love aïoli and will happily use it as a dip for bite after bite of bread, carrots, potatoes, and even vegetables they might otherwise refuse. Two or three small cloves of garlic per egg yolk, pounded with a mortar and pestle, make a fairly pungent garlic mayonnaise—depending on the garlic. The strength of garlic’s flavor can vary a lot, depending on freshness, season, and variety. I always pound the garlic in a mortar and pestle and reserve half of it, so I can add it later if the aïoli needs it. (You can always add more garlic, but you can’t subtract it.) It’s important to pound the garlic to a very smooth purée so the sauce will be garlicky through and through, not just a mayonnaise with bits of garlic in it. One egg yolk will absorb up to one cup of oil, but you can add less if you don’t need that much mayonnaise. Whisk the oil in drop by drop at first, adding more as you go. It is much easier to whisk when the bowl is steadied. To help hold it still, set it on top of a coiled dish towel. Adding a small amount of water to the egg yolk before you incorporate the oil helps prevent the sauce from separating or “breaking.” If mayonnaise does separate, stop adding oil, but don’t despair. Just crack a fresh egg, separate the yolk into a new bowl, add a little water as before, and slowly whisk in first the broken sauce and then the rest of the oil. Make aïoli half an hour ahead of time, to give the flavors a chance to marry. As with anything made with raw eggs, if you’re not going to serve mayonnaise within an hour, refrigerate it. Aïoli tastes best the day it’s made.