Aioli. Or, attitdue is everything.

Here are some delightful ingredients:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s salt, garlic, egg and olive oil.

In June, two dear friends of mine asked me to help with the food for their wedding reception.  They wanted to serve tapas.

I learned about tapas.  There is this delightful thing served with many tapas: aioli.  Aioli, for the uninitiated, is garlic mayonnaise.  It is delish.  I had never made it.

I was unafraid to try!

Since June, I’ve made aioli, on average, once a week.  I usually make 1.5c at a time.  The ingredients are as follows.

5 cloves of garlic.
pinch of salt (rock salt works best)
1 egg
1c olive oil

You need a food processor.  (I think a blender might work, I don’t know, I don’t have a blender.)

I wish I could tell you how to make this without a food processor.  Because I like cooking things that don’t require engine-powered equipment.  I do not understand why bread takes a mixer when bread has been eaten since, you know, the dawn of agriculture.  I make crappy bread (my bread=doorstop). I don’t care much, because Das eats so much bread that I’d have to be up before sunrise every day of the week and twice on Sundays.  I digress.

Here is how to assemble the aforementioned ingredients.

Use of of these things:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mortar and pestle.  Of doooom.

I got this at on the international aisle of a Mexican grocery.  It was $15.  It’s not very big.  I don’t need a very big one, because the only things I’ve smashed is garlic+salt and once coriander seeds with peppercorns.

Smash garlic+salt (a pinchish) in mortar and pestle until it’s a paste.  You will know.  It’s like liquified garlic, more or less.

Add egg to food processor.  Process for 30 seconds.

I usually count to 50.

Add garlic paste.

Slowly add 1 cup of olive oil.  Slooooower.  I do not have a sous chef or a photographer, so I can’t show you how the pour looks but I like words so I’ll try it this way: it’s like thinner than a straw.  It’s like a line drawn with a pencil.  that kind of slow.

Once all oil is in the cuisinart, let it go for a moment.  You’ll also know this, because it will look like mayo being flung about by a blade in a round box.

Here’s a cute bowl:

  I include this pic because I think mayo isn’t that pretty.  But the bowl is pretty, right?  All jaunty and tipped?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s aioli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s much tastier than it’s pudding-like-countenance would lead you to believe.

I would love to say that there’s more to this post than a long winded description of my aioli recipe.  But there’s not much.

Sometimes, though, when I forget to be afraid of things?  I do a lot, a lot better, and a lot more than when I let fear dictate excuses for why I would avoid.  Why I would duck, why I would sidestep.

I have been called fearless by someone who didn’t know me well enough to know otherwise.  I laughed at him.   I sometimes feel like I’m fully paralyzed by fright.  But then, there are some days and nights in which I would boldly cook for seventy-five having no idea that it should have been daunting.

Maybe everything should be cooking for a reception.  Maybe everything could be with a little pinch of salt and a tipped bowl kind of attitude.

xo
mitda.

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