Another Traditional French Recipe: Aioli

Have you ever heard of Chez Panisse...or better yet read Fanny at Chez Panisse by Alice Walters? Well, dear reader, it is a story about a girl named Fanny (she is real!) and her mother owns the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.  I SO want to go there. Why isn't my mother like Fanny's mother?  Why don't I get to run back and forth between a restaurant and an open air-market everyday?  Well, the answer is...school. I know lame excuse right? But it's true. I still have my summers free though (Thank goodness!) Instead of a restaurant and open-air market, I have my beach house (with my 16 cousins all living there for the whole summer!) and the supermarket. Not as French as a restaurant and open-air market, but still will do.

Speaking of supermarkets and summer, I am gearing up for my annual job that my cousin and I take on each year. Each week we do the difficult job of grocery shopping for the week for the 16 cousins and aunts and uncles. We buy a ton of food and we are at the store for hours! We spend hundreds of dollars each week.  Yes!  Food is very expensive these days.

Each week, my aunt and my mother make a list of things we will need at the grocery store.  They rotate turns taking us to the store.  We also alternate the side of the store we start on.
For example: week 1, we start on the dairy side (her favorite), and week 2 we start on the fruit and veggies side (my favorite).  At the check out, we have our own procession line.   (We get that much food and fill the carts to the brim!) My aunt passes the food to my cousin, Joanie and she passes it to me. My aunt also helps me line up the groceries in order. I put it on the conveyor-belt. My aunt also helps me line up the groceries in order. Then, we push the 2 and sometimes even 3 carts out to the car.  The best part: we get a treat after doing all that hard work!  And, upon arriving home, we get to watch all our cousins scurry back and forth unloading the food.

So, that brings me to my next topic. What will I use the mayonnaise for?  Well, dear reader, I have it all planned out. In the summer when many good vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes, and beans are ripe, I will prepare a big platter of all the summer's best vegetables and in the middle, put the nice creamy mayonnaise.

This recipe took me three tries to make it even remotely edible, so don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out the first time. The main difficulty that you could run into is they mayonnaise frequently breaks.  What does this mean?  It happens when you whisk the oil and egg and they separate and won't stay together.  Check out Luisa Weiss blog, she has a link for saving the aioli (mayonnaise). So, if it does break, try this tip. It helped me a little to save my broken mayonnaise. And then I broke it again! So, then I started back up with a fresh batch and finally, this one worked.  Here is the recipe.  



Aioli (Fanny at Chez Panisse)
Make 1 1/4 cups

• 1 egg at room temperature
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 cup light olive oil or vegetable oil
• 1/2 clove garlic
• 1/4 white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, or lemon juice

1. Separate the egg and put the yolk in a medium-sized bowl. Season with a good pinch of salt. It is important that the egg be at room temperature or a little warmer. The egg and oil won't mix well if the egg is at room temperature. Set the bowl on a damp dish towel so it won't slip and slide while you are mixing.

2. Measure 1 cup oil into container with a pour spout. Mix the egg and salt together with a whisk. Whisking all the time, slowly add the oil to the egg drop by drop. This is important people when I say drop by drop, I mean it. It will thicken gradually as the egg absorbs the oil. If too much oil is added at once, the egg and oil will separate and won't go back together (except for sometimes when you use the tip). So it is important to be patient ant the beginning--later, when it gets thick, you can add more oil at once.

3. It will start to get quite thick after you have mixed in about 1/4 cup oil. Thin it by adding 1/2 teaspoon warm water, then continue to add the oil in a thin, steady stream. It will be quite thick again after you have mixed in about 3/4 cup oil. Thin again with 1/2 teaspoon warm water, and whisk in the remaining oil in a steady stream.

This what is looks like before all the seasonings

4. Make a puree of the garlic. Pound it in a mortar with a pestle until smooth and juicy--this is fun. Or, rub the clove against the pointy ends of a fork held against the bottom of  bowl. Another way that my cooking teacher taught me, is to chop the garlic really, really finely on a chopping board until the garlic is in a almost translucent paste. Add about half the puree to the mayonnaise. It's better to start with a little garlic, because you can always add more to make it taste stronger, but you can't take some out later if it is too garlicky.

5. Finish the seasoning by adding about 1/4 teaspoon of white or red wine vinegar or lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper. Taste and add more vinegar of salt if needed. Is the garlic flavor strong enough? Add a bit more puree if you like. Keep chilled in the refrigerator if you are not going to not going to eat it right away. It is best if eaten the same day as made but will keep 2-3 days in the refrigerator.

This is the finished mayonnaise