Aioli is a wonderful, versatile garlic mayonnaise. It is especially suitable with poached or steamed seafoods and seems to have a natural affinity with steamed potatoes. In fact you can use it anywhere you use normal mayonnaise.

You really should try that wonderful Provencal seafood dish Le Grand Aioli.

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• half teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Approximately 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Lemon juice, to taste
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

• Crush the garlic with the salt in a mortar and pestle, or crush it well under the side of a kitchen knife
• Place the egg yolk and mustard into the bowl and whisk well with wire whisk
• Then slowly add the olive oil little by little whisking all the while
• You can do this in a food processor or blender
• You should get a nice mayonnaise consistency
• Store in the fridge

For more garlic recipes just type ‘garlic’ into the search box.

Garlic lovers may be interested in the following books:

Food pairing with aioli

Aioli and other garlic-rich sauces require some thought when choosing an appropriate wine. You need to have sharpish wines when a dish has a dominant garlic flavour. Delicate wines can be overpowered. Vermentino or Viognier can be good choices for white, a rose made from Grenache might also suit. A rustic Italian red wine or perhaps a South Australian GSM is another option you might consider.