On a recent visit with my friend Tricia Robinson, who lives in the small village of St Jeannet, overlooking Nice and the Côte d'Azur, after a huge lunch, we weren't that hungry for dinner, so we decided to just sip some rosé and wait for inspiration to strike. I was admiring her mortar and pestle, there was some violet-colored spring garlic, a bottle of local olive oil was nearby, and voilà...suddenly, there was our dinner.
Frugal me toasted some stale rounds of baguette au levain, which I brushed injudiciously with olive oil that was pressed just a few kilometers away, sold in her village, and scraped them with just-cut garlic cloves while still warm from the oven. (Try it...it's the best! Or crumble and toss the garlic toasts into your next salad.) But having them simply slathered aïoli, we were content.
The great thing about aïoli is that you always have all the ingredients on hand; olive oil, garlic, egg yolks, and salt, and it pretty much goes with everything. The downside is you should only eat it with others who are eating it as well, since you'll likely develop a distinct garlicky aroma that will also follow you around for a few days afterward.
You don't need a mortar and pestle, but Tricia uses her mortar with a fork, which she says works better. I sometimes use a whisk, just because I like to be contrary. But those people in Provence are really sticklers for the rules and if you do make any changes, you should keep it quiet.
For those of you timid about eating raw eggs, you perhaps can use pasteurized eggs (I've never tried them, so can't advise) but whenever I use raw eggs, I buy them from the freshest source I know. People get freaked when they see a dozen eggs for $5, but that's around 40 cents an egg, which is a pretty good deal. And since your body is your temple—you do want to feed it well, right?
Once you master aïoli, you'll find that it's the perfect summertime condiment. I'll often roast a chicken—or buy one, so I don't have to turn on the oven, then offer a big platter of steamed green beans, hard-cooked eggs draped with anchovies, (sustainable) tuna, garlic and thyme-roasted potatoes, raw or parboiled carrots, and whatever else I feel like.
But be careful who you invite: a fellow from Provence flipped out, like big time, because I served chicken with aïoli to him. They take their food pretty seriously down there and tradition states it should be served with salt cod, and he was stunned that anyone on earth would even think of putting aïoli anywhere near roast poultry. Yikes, I can still remember the look he gave me, arched eyebrow and all. (See, I told you.)
Aïoli is the easiest thing in the world to put together, and vegetarians and chicken fish-eaters alike enjoy grazing around the table, all positioned around a common bowl of lively garlic mayonnaise.
When making aïoli, I would start with the smaller amount of garlic, and add more when it's done. Depending on the season, the garlic might be quite strong, and the flavor get almost nuclear, even if you think you like lots of garlic, like I do. If it's not going to be eaten within an hour or so, aïoli should be chilled. But it is best if it hasn't been chilled, and it's always best served the same day it's made.
The following is Tricia's recipe for making aïoli, in her own words. Because for one thing, as they say down in Provence, we Parisians don't know how to cook their food. And another, whenever I stay with her, I'm always surprised to see she has about a half-dozen bottles of olive oil lined up on the counter, which she reaches for all the time when she's cooking. And although I like olive oil, I'm more of a butter expert.
Making Aïoli
"Sacré bleu, I've no butter for David's petit dejeuner...after all I've read about him craving French butter!
I decide to tough it out and tell him we're below the butter line here in the Mediterranean; it's olive oil country. To prove it I made my favorite aïoli for a light supper after the big lunch out. I use local farm eggs, I have least six or seven choices of olive oil to choose from, some good bread to toast and a few vegetables as crudités. When I teach classes here in my house I often give each person a different olive oil to use so we can compare tastes at the end. For this one, I used just the local one from down in the village.
Making aïoli by hand not only produces a more luscious version than by machine, it is the best kitchen therapy. You stand, you start dripping oil very slowly into the eggs and garlic, you zone out, and you don't get up until you're done. My 7 year old son once told a caller "Mum can't come to the phone, she's making mayonnaise."
A bowl of deep yellow aîoli is part of my "fast food France" meal, along with a roasted chicken from the butcher's spit, a pan of small potatoes roasted with rosemary and a big green salad. And rosé wine, of course!
(David Note: Sacré bleu!...I'm sure she does it in the dark, so the neighbors don't see.)
Garlic is the very essence of Provence and aïoli is the official Provencal garlic dish. It is often served with raw or steamed vegetables as an appetizer platter. Or as a grand aïoli, a complete meal where large bowls of aïoli are served as a sauce for salt cod, snails, eggs, potatoes and seasonal vegetables. This meal is often served at village fêtes in summer washed down with the local rosé." -Tricia Robinson
AïoliAbout 1 cup (250ml)
From Tricia Robinson of A Taste of Provence
2-3 cloves of garlic (preferably fresh)
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 cup (250ml) extra-virgin olive oil (I don't substitute Canola but you can if you wish)
1. Crush the garlic cloves with the salt in a mortar or deep bowl until you have a smooth paste. Take out some of it as it may be too much; you can add it back later.
2. Add the egg yolk. Anchor the bowl down by tying a dishtowel around it tightly, if necessary.
3. Using a fork or whisk, add the oil to the egg and garlic mixture starting very slowly, drop by drop. I like to use a spout in an olive oil bottle to regulate the flow but you can also drip the oil in from a spoon. As the mayonnaise thickens continue to add the oil in a very thin stream. Continue until all the oil has been incorporated.
4. If it gets too thick you can dilute it slightly with a tablespoon of warm water - don't add more oil, it will just get thicker. Taste, and add more of the garlic, if desired.
This recipe can easily be doubled, and you can make the aïoli in a food processor but the texture and taste is not as fine as hand-made.
Related Posts and Recipes
Fixing Broken Mayonnaise (Chow.com Video)
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Tricia's Guest Rental in Saint Jeannet
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8 Tips for Using and Choosing Olive Oil
This looks fantastic, David. Twenty minutes ago, I was looking for mayonnaise in a UK grocery store but was grossed out by the options so deferred from buying any. I may make this garlic aioli today to eat along with my sesame baguette! Thank you for the recipe. It looks delicious.
Well, I've never done it, but I would eat aioli with roasted chicken! I could eat it with pretty much anything...
swoon
Oh my, that is the most luscious aioli I have ever seen. I admit I usually go the way of the impatient cook and use the blender, but I think this recipe will make me change my ways.
I'd eat it with chicken too...I love roast chicken and mayonnaise on baguette as a sandwich! Yum!
Jennifer and Bobbie: Well, I like it with roast chicken, too. Maybe we need to get a second opinion...any Provençalais out there?
la mayonnaise maison est la seule que j'ai vraiment connue, et je trouve la mayonnaise du commerce insipide. Par contre j'ai toujours mis une cuillere (en fait la valeur de l'oeuf - un peu moins) pour relever. par contre, tout sauf l'huile d'olive, elle donne souvent un gout amer, trop prononce...
Belles photos!
In Cataluña and most of the spanish mediterranean cost, all i oli is very popular. They use to spread it over rice dishes, and it is said that the true all i oli is done without any egg, just garlic and oil, which makes a very, very strong sauce.
j'ai toujours mis une cuillere (en fait la valeur de l'oeuf - un peu moins) de MOUTARDE DE DIJON pour relever.
Je dois preciser que je proviens de L'est de la France, bien au dela de la ligne huile d'olive en effet, pas tres loin de Dijon.
Et une petite mention:
Je suis passee par New York recemment, et j'ai ete positivement impressionnee par la qualite et les standards de la nourriture. Les restaurants Francais sont tres authentiques!.. Je me verrai tres bien vivre la bas, d'ailleurs j'ai tellement aime la ville que j'ai deja dans l'idee d'y retourner...
This is about the most romantic aïoli I've seen done! This is more than just a recipe, but a way of life, thanks for sharing your culinary adventure.
Regards,
CCR =:~)
Okay, you've inspired me. I'm on a garlic kick right now, considering that I just pulled my garlic last week, and the other day I made tempero (wrote about it today) as well as six batches of pesto. We have oodles of new potatoes and a couple dozen chickens in the freezer and I just snapped some green beans this morning....
One question: How well does it keep?
One more question: Do you toss it with the steamed/roasted vegetables, or do you serve it alongside?
I love aioli! In Lebanon, our version of fast food is chargrilled chickens accompanied (mandatory!!) with a very strong garlic sauce called TOUM (use egg whites and veg oil, sometimes even without egg), grab some pita and tear off some chicken meat, drown it in toum and Yikes!!!. I couldn't dream of having chicken without my garlic sauce. When I was a kid i would wake up in the middle of the night and sneak some lethal doses of garlic sauce, using my fingers, nothing else. Can't do that anymore, It reppels my husband LOL :(
Bethany: Hmm, I wonder if that's the famous garlic sauce at Zankou chicken in Los Angeles?
I love that stuff!
I have a severe phobia of mayonnaise, but I think you may have just converted me. I will be making aioli tonight!
ohh... looks luscious... like a very good creme patisserie, plus the entire post sounds like foreplay!
Oh Yea!! You know exactly what I'm talking about then :) Never been to zankou, will try it next im in LA!
$5.00 a dozen? You know that Farm eggs are $7, $8, and $9 per dozen now at the Berkeley and SF farmer's markets. Crazy, but delicious! (And they always sell out early!)
Lebanese garlic sauce - yum, had that at the Palette de Courbet on the rue Gustave Courbet in Paris 16eme back when I lived in the quartier. The restaurant was just a neighborhood place, run by a friendly family, and the garlic sauce on the roast chicken platter or the fish platter was always lovely.
The aoli looks delicious, but what I'm REALLY drooling over is the scenery in the background. Wow. I'd love to be there, looking at that view and eating garlicky goodness.
I'm glad to see you encouraging making it my hand. I think mayonaiise by hand has a much nicer texture. Also I seem cursed making it my machine. Almost everytime I loose it and it splits, yet I'm always successful by hand. Sometimes I'm lazy though and I do it by machine anyways and I requite complete quiet in the kitchen, but it doesn't seem to work. So from now on I'm sticking to the hand method.
An unrelated question - I tried making watermelon popsicles, followed the recipe exactly as in your book! But my popsicles are very icy and have separated a bit, there is a white portion and a red portion underneath it! Any idea why? I'm happy blaming it on American watermelons!!
p.s. I've tried a few other ice-cream recipes from your book and have had awesome results! This is the first time I'm making Popsicle.
Thanks!
I really despise mayonnaise but I really enjoy alioli. I had it Barcelona and got addicted. My favourite is the alioli that they give you to go with the soupe de poisson. Is this a similiar to that? I would make it in an instant!
gayu: I can't imagine what that white layer would be, as there is nothing white in watermelon juice. The watermelon popsicle base and picture accompanying the recipe in the book was made with American watermelons.
FYI to all: There's an Ice Cream Q & A section on the site for inquiries.
OMG, that's something I love so much! I make that speciality a lot. Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Rosa
Lovely post! It made me wish I were in Provence.
I don't mind garlic breath, actually. Except if it comes from alcoholic middle-aged French men on the métro. But as I am living in Norway, this ain't exactly a problem!
By the way, in my experience, it is that horrible garlic powder that gives the worst of the worst garlic breaths. Fresh and young garlic only gives a hint of garlic in your breath, something which can be almost pleasant. Hehe.
Beautiful photos, David. I feel like I am sipping Rose on that terrace now, about to tear into aioli sur la baguette au levain. And, yes, I will be making this aioli! Merci.
Purely good.
My friends in Aix love to serve aioli with all kinds of cold roasted meats (pork, chicken, veal, rosbif) .... maybe Mr ArchedEyebrow was just a purist un peu coincé .... or upset he hadn't thought of the idea himself!
Beautiful photos, indeed.
If you are scared about raw eggs, why not going for the Catalan version, allioli? It's just oil, garlic and a pinch of salt (and an antiacid tablet every hour, for the next five hours...)
Great post and great photos as usual. This strikes a nerve since i was born, raised, and trained in Provence.
A couple of comments to make it really authentic:
1. Pasteurized eggs? Are you crazy?
2. Count about 1 garlic clove per person. Yeah, that much.
3. Better to use the pestle to whisk the aioli. Gives a nice texture.
4. For true, rustic version of aioli, start with eggs, garlic, salt, pepper, and a little overcooked, crushed potato. the starch from the potato gives a rustic, very nice texture to the aioli. And that's the way it is usually made traditionally.
5. in response to suzen, the "rouille" is served with soupe de poisson. It's a variation of aioli. You'll need to add saffron and pimiento.
6. in response to christelle: some people put dijon mustard because it is a natural emulsifier. however, that's Provence. No mustard. The cooked potato (another natural emulsifier) does the same thing.
The first time I made aioli, my recipe (the wonderful Contessa) called for 6 garlic cloves. I halved it and used 3 and still was overwhelmed and i adore garlic. Now i use 1 and it's perfect!
Hi! Looks amazing! & What a view! I would never be indoors if I lived there! Quick question... If there are any leftovers (which I seriously doubt)... Would/could this be refrigerated? or would it just solidify?
Try this aioli as a dip for fried zuchinni breaded in Panko!! MMMM AMAZING!
I read in a book by a French guy, that if you're afraid of raw egg yolk, you could try a cooked one. Never tried, I buy organic and very fresch ones ;-)
Now I discovered why the French Aioli is so yellow: no lemon, nor vinegar added!
The fotos are amazing - as always.
mmm. That gorgeous color belies the amazing quality of the eggs... and I can just imagine what a fabulous dinner this was. Just perfect, if you ask me.
We're in Chicago and just don't have a reliable way to get really fresh eggs. With two little kids eating soft eggs and custards, an elderly parent who likes runny eggs in her huevos rancheros, and a husband who sneaks the raw cookie dough, I've gone to the pasteurized eggs and never looked back. Yes, they are expensive compared to the others, but never having to worry about someone getting sick is priceless. I haven't noticed a difference between them and 'regular' eggs.
Okay - off to try my hand at making the aioli!
Super! Love aioli... with roast chicken? My God that sounds most devilish, but in the best possible way! Thinking I'm seriously glad you can't see what people try to pass as "aioli" here, and by here I mean NZ here, not here as in my own kitchen.