OMG I MADE ALIOLI FROM SCRATCH

For realz, yo. There were other amusing things that happened today, but this is by far the most awesome.

Now, I don’t just mean that I made alioli with a hand-blender or something. I made it WITH A MORTAR AND PESTLE. That is how hard-core I am.

So just to review: alioli (or aïoli) is a sort of mayonnaise that is made with a clove of garlic as the basic emulsifier rather than an egg. Originally from the Provençal / Catalonian regions, this recipe was traditionally made by crushing some garlic into a smooth paste and then adding mustard and oil until it takes on a mayonnaise-like texture. Egg yolks are sometimes added to speed up the emulsion, but the “real thing” involves just salt, garlic, oil, with a bit of mustard and a bit of lemon juice.

Here is a more general recipe for the sauce (although I disagree with the author’s use of egg), but here is what I did tonight:

1. Take 2 large cloves of garlic, peel then slice finely and throw into a pestle (in retrospect, one was more than enough)
2. Add salt, a little splash of olive oil, and a half-teaspoon of Dijon mustard.
3. Pound and pound and pound. The garlic should turn into a paste.
4. At a certain point, the olive oil you had added will disappear into the paste. At that point, add just enough oil to cover the paste and start pounding again.
5. As the paste absorbs the oil, repeat the previous step again.
6. When the paste starts getting a bit stiff, add the juice of half a lemon.
7. Pound until the juice is absorbed, and then start again with the oil.
8. Keep going until the paste starts getting stiff. NOTE: It’s very hard to get the sort of “hard” mayonnaise emulsion you get from store-bought mayonnaise, so don’t push the emulsion too far.

Now, I threw the entirety of the mixture over a super-large bowl of mâche greens and called it an appetizer. I should’ve left the alioli to mellow out a bit before eating, as the two cloves of raw garlic were strong enough to make my mouth hurt. I’m a big fan of spicy food, but even I had trouble finishing. Also, I stank of garlic for the rest of the night.