Cooking for engineers - Aioli garlic mayo

Here’s the technical specification for a Aioli also known as garlic mayo. Goes well with seafood or chicken. You make a garlic paste by drawing the back of a knife over chopped cloves. The raw garlic is punchy!.

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Technical Specification: Aioli (Garlic Mayonnaise)

• Application: Complements seafood, chicken, and other proteins.
• Core Principle: Emulsion of oil into an aqueous phase (egg yolk + lemon juice) stabilised by lecithin (a natural emulsifier found in egg yolks) and mechanical shear (physical energy used to break oil into tiny droplets and mix them into the water phase.)

Prerequisites

• Mixing bowl
• Electric hand mixer
• A glass container for the unused egg whites

Ingredients

• 175ml vegatable oil in a jar
• 4 garlic cloves (5 if small)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Implementation steps

Step 1: Pre-measure oil

Why: Once emulsification starts, continuous mixing is required. Pre-measuring avoids process interruption later.

Step 2: Peel the skin off garlic cloves and roughly chop

Science: Crushing garlic activates the enzyme alliinase, converting alliin into allicin – the compound responsible for pungency and antimicrobial properties.

Step 3: Sprinkle salt over the chopped garlic to act as a light abrasive

Step 4: Mash the salted garlic

Pressing down on the flat side of a knife, mash the salted garlic. Scape it together and repeat. It’ll take a 4 or 5 passes to get a nice paste.

Step 5: Egg yolk separation

Method: Shell halves act as a crude yolk vs whites separator. In the glass, crack the egg so you get two shell halves. Let the egg white fall into the glass while catching the egg yolk in the shell halves. Transfer yolk ball between the two halves until majoriy of whites have fallen into the glass. Science: Egg yolk contains lecithin, a phospholipid that stabilises oil droplets by reducing interfacial tension.

Step 6: In the bowl mix egg yolk, garlic paste and lemon juice

Science: Acidic environment (from lemon juice) denatures proteins slightly, improving emulsification stability.

Step 7: Emulsification

Get electric hand mixer going, whisking the egg yolk, garlic paste and juice together. Now, somehow, while keeping hand mixer going and bowl from skittering around, slowly add oil a little at a time Each time you add a little oil wait for it to be incorporated before adding more. Science: Emulsion formation requires energy input to disperse oil droplets into the aqueous phase. Adding oil gradually prevents phase inversion (where oil becomes continuous phase too early). Control parameter: Shear rate must remain high; oil addition rate must be low.

Step 8: By-product handling

Put the egg white away for breakfast.

Step 9: Clean up the kitchen

Wash the knife, chopping board, mixer attachments and bowl, put away the ingredients and wipe down the work surface. The implementation is not complete until the kitchen has returned to a known-good state.

Quality Control

Visual: Smooth, glossy texture indicates successful emulsification. Failure mode: If oil separates, likely due to insufficient shear or too rapid oil addition.

References

• Rick Stein’s Provencal Aioli Rice with clams, prawns and aioli recipe - BBC Food