How to make Aioli

Aioli (aïoli) is a beautiful garlic mayonnaise sauce that really complements chips and fries as well as most meat dishes. It’s an excellent dipping sauce and can be modified to suit all tastes. Here we give the basic recipe because it is so easy to make. You can or course make your own mayonnaise but it is easier to buy some in to save time. You can of course buy aioli but that defeats the purpose here! 

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Equipment:

• kitchen bowls
• pestle and mortar

Ingredients to make 200g (2/3 cups) of aoli:

• 2 garlic cloves, mashed in a pestle and mortar, a heavy knife blade or cut up finely
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• ½ cup/120g mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 tsp dijon mustard (optional)
• 1 tsp pepper (optional)

Preparation:

1. Mash the garlic with salt (and mustard if desired)  in small bowl until a paste forms.
2. Whisk in the mayonnaise, olive oil, and lemon juice. Add the olive oil in drops because there is a tendency for this sauce to split. The sauce should form an emulsion. 
3. Season to taste with coarse salt and pepper. To thicken the sauce just reduce the olive oil by a third if desired. 

When a sauce splits just stop adding the oil and whisk vigorously until the mixture comes back together. Then resume adding the oil in smaller amounts and mixing as before.