[Sca-cooks] (OOP) 2 Questions - Aioli & Pickled Onions

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Craig Jones. wrote:

> Can anyone explain the method for making Aioli.  E David's French
> Provincial Cookery explains that you pulp the garlic, mix the egg
> yolks through with a wooden spoon and added oil slowly until it got
> very think.
>
> I thought to make Aioli you had to "whip like hell"?  Can someone
> help?


Whipping like hell is dramatic, but to some extent unnecessary, and then
the adding oil slowly reference may be a bit misleading, too. What you
absolutely must do is add the oil in small enough increments (however
you want to do that; drop by drop, in a thin stream, a teaspoon at a
time, whatever works for you) that it becomes and remains emulsified
with the other ingredients. Whipping like hell is great when you have a
decent amount of thickish liquid (like, say, mashed garlic, lemon and
egg yolks), but the only hard and fast rule is that you not add more oil
than can be incorporated without causing the emulsion to break. If
you're going to whip like hell, something you can pour the oil from in a
very thin stream (indicating that a small amount of oil is being
transferred per second, if you follow me), such as a small pitcher, or
one of those oil cruets with a long thin spout, is a good idea. In
restaurants a square bain-marie insert is good for such pouring; you use
one of the corners, and then a lot of food processors include a small
cup insert with what looks like a pinhole in it; you pour your oil in
there and it drips into the other ingredients while the processor does
its thing.

You can whip at a reasonably sedate pace (or, in fact, you can even use
a mortar and pestle), provided you make sure not to add too much oil at
a time, and make sure it is all incorporated before you add more. Make
sure you scrape any unmixed oil from the sides of the bowl, and
incorporate it, before adding more, too.


Now if you really want to be shocked, imagine my reaction when, after being taught some pretty complex methods for making various butter-based sauces such as bearnaise and beurre blanc, I found that it is fairly common restaurant practice to for chefs to dump huge wads of butter into boiling saute pans containing fast-reducing sauces, then walk away for a bit, to return to a perfectly emulsified sauce, without even stirring the gosh-darned mixture, let alone beating it.


Adamantius

--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98