aioli and baguette

[topaz]

20. Make aioli from scratch (no cheating with Hellman's).

It works, bitches:



It did not turn out to be painless.  I followed the recipe in the Silver Palate cookbook, which calls for two egg yolks and 1½ cups of oil.  I dutifully poured the oil into the running food processor in a hair-thin stream.  Right up until the very end it was unbelievably perfect.  After pouring the last of the oil and admiring my emulsified darling as it whipped around the bowl, I turned away for a moment to attend to the asparagus.  When I turned back, it had fallen apart and collapsed into a curdly, soupy slop.

Julia Child insists that a turned mayonnaise can be fixed by whipping an egg yolk and emulsifying the failed stuff back into it.  I did that, but about halfway through I could tell it wasn't going to finish, and in a few seconds there was nothing left.

Then I read that ¾ cup is the maximum amount of oil you can use per egg yolk.  If you have never made a mayonnaise before, Julia confides, it is best to start with ½ cup.  Oh.  Well, then.

So I threw it out and started from scratch with three egg yolks instead of two, and gosh if it didn't, like, work.  Damn.

The most amusing part is that it isn't even that good.  After the first failed batch I got thinking that maybe I put in too much lemon juice, or mustard, or something that just made it a little too hard to hold together.  So the second time I cut way back on all of those ingredients -- which of course are the things that actually make the aioli taste like something.

So what I ended up with is a sauce that tastes like .... 1½ cups of extra-virgin olive oil.  And a little raw garlic.  Yeah.  Even I can't get enthusiastic about that.

But really, I barely even care.  Because now I can make my own aioli.  My new emulsifying technique is UNSTOPPABLE!

As a bonus, I even made pain l'ancienne out of The Bread Baker's Apprentice:



And yes, it tasted as good as it looks. Oh yes. Victory is mine, and it is hot and crusty.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*cheers you on, singing songs of your glory*

[coraline]

really, even as much as i love olive oil, i learned my lesson about using it making mayonaise -- really, you want a neutral-flavored oil, with maybe a splash of olive in it. and yeah, go easy on the raw garlic -- a little goes a long way.
but you can make a fantastic curry mayonaise for curry potato salad or chicken salad, or flavor it with a lot of dill and some mustard for a fantastic sauce on fish... home-made mayo is the shit.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I think the recipe I was using called for half olive oil and half peanut oil. Which made me say: omgwtf?? Peanut oil?

Maybe next time I'll use canola as the base and try 25% of regular olive oil (not extra virgin).

Lemon garlic aioli! Baha!

[coraline]

yeah, i'll often use canola -- i think peanut might be fine as well, since it's not really all that strongly flavored.

[cutieperson]

this.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

and yeah, go easy on the raw garlic -- a little goes a long way.

Have you met Tim?

(Garlic! peanut butter! peanut butter! garlic!)

[coraline]

i love me some raw garlic too, but it seems like it goes a longer way than you'd expect in the mayonaise. and one can always add more later :)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

It really really does. I was too lazy by half to do the roasted garlic aioli that was suggested, but maybe I will next time.

AlliYUMMM.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Victory is mine, and it is hot and crusty.

Like your MEN!

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

Yay for hot, crusty victory!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

You made pain a l'ancienne?! *sigh!*

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I did and they were awesome. Even better is that they were really pretty easy. You mainly have to be willing to let them rise for a long time and supervise a fairly short bake.

Next time I will bring you one! But only if you have it for breakfast with me.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

You are SO ON.

[ceo]

Mmmm, I need to make pain á l'ancienne again. Almost everything I've made from that book has been completely awesome, the bagels in particular. Once or twice I've use one of the brioche recipes along with some ground-up-together dark chocolate and candied ginger to make an utterly glorious chocolate-ginger-swirl brioche.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm really looking forward to learning to bake bagels.

The chocolate ginger brioche sounds so good I may just have to go home right now to make it. Do you add it at the very last moment, right before you roll the dough, to get the swirl effect? One of the first things I made from that book was the casiatello, which came out very nice but I think needs more cheese and cut into little blocks, not grated the way I did it.

[ceo]

After the first rise, I punch it down into a vaguely flat and rectangular shape, then spread the filling in an even layer (leaving the last inch or so bare so it'll seal), then roll it up into a log and stuff it into the loaf pan. After some trial and error, I found that the best way of making the filling was to roughly chop up the chocolate and ginger, put both in a ziploc bag and freeze for an hour or so, then run it through a blade-type coffee grinder. (This may add some coffee flavor to the filling or chocolate/ginger flavor to the next pot of coffee, but I don't consider either to be a problem.) How much filling to put in is a matter of taste; I haven't yet put in too much and that's not for lack of trying.

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

The bread looks exquisite. My technique for mayo is 2 whole eggs in the cup to my stick blender. Add a packet of lemon juice powder and a pinch of salt. Put in the blender. Add 1 1/2 cup of oil. Start the stick blender and slowly draw the blender into the oil.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Add a packet of lemon juice powder

Google assures me there are such things, but most sellers won't tell me what's in them; the ones that disclose ingredients all seem to be based on corn-syrup solids or lactose. What are you using?

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

I use True Lemon (or lime, or orange even) It contains: Citric Acid, Lactose, Lemon Juice, Lemon Oil, Maltodextrin, and Ascorbic Acid. I don't have much problem with any of those ingredients, but I admit, I use it mostly as a convenience and because with mayo, it helps to control the amount of moisture in the suspension. I think I've found it in Market Basket, Roche Bros and Donnelans.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

I make hollandaise (egg yolk, lemon juice, butter) in the blender using Julia's quick method from her first book. The trick is to pour in the oil (or melted butter, in my case) slooooooooowly.... more a stream of droplets than a pour. If I do that, it always works.

FWIW I never manage to load it up with more than 1/2 cup or so per yolk that way, but it's still a recklessly indulgent topping for asparagus on a random weekday night, and only takes a couple minutes to assemble. :-)

[lady-mishegas.livejournal.com]

Wow, that LOOKS really good! Why do green spreads look yummier than non-green spreads? The bread looks delicious too. I am impressed by your mayonaise adventure. Maybe I will have to do a project 40.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

The greenness of it is the result of using dark green extra virgin olive oil, which I have already determined was WHOA HEY NO! It's like HELLO, OLIVE!!! HAPPY TO SEE ME???

Aioli that I have had professionally prepared tends to be pale-to-rich yellow. I expect that if I make it with canola oil it'll come out closer to that shade.

The mayo really was easy and I encourage you to try. Just remember: half a cup of oil to each egg yolk.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

OK, coworker Paige who also used to live in France wants your bread recipe. FYI.