Recipe no. 45 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 31.
Ingredients
- about two cloves of garlic per person
- a pinch of salt
- an egg yolk
- oil (about 3 or 4 tablespoons)
- the juice of a lemon
- a tablespoon of warm water
- a few drops of water (if needed)
- a second egg yolk and a few drops of lemon juice (in case of a failed aioli)
Preparation
- Pounding the garlicPeel the garlic, put it into a mortar and reduce it to a paste with the pestle.
- Mounting with the egg yolkAdd the salt and the egg yolk, then pour in the oil in a thin stream while turning without ever stopping, until a thick paste is obtained.
- LooseningAfter 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil, add the lemon juice and the warm water; add a few more drops of water if the paste thickens too much, to prevent the oil from separating.
- Bringing back a failed aioliIf the aioli separates despite everything, start again in the mortar with a second egg yolk and a little lemon juice, working the failed aioli into it spoonful by spoonful while turning without stopping.
Reboul's text
We place this recipe here, though this was not truly its place. As it is to serve us as an accompaniment or complement to the article that follows, we thought it useful to have it at hand.
Take about two cloves of garlic per person, peel them, put them into a mortar, reduce them to a paste with the pestle; add a pinch of salt, an egg yolk and pour in the oil in a thin stream while turning with the pestle. Take care to pour the oil very slowly and, during this time, never stop turning; you must obtain a thick paste. When you have poured in about 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil, add the juice of a lemon and a tablespoon of warm water; when you find the paste too thick again, add a few more drops of water, otherwise it will break, so to speak, the oil separating from the rest.
If, despite all these precautions, this mishap should happen to you, you would need to take the whole out of the mortar, put a second egg yolk in the bottom of it, a few drops of lemon juice and, little by little, spoonful by spoonful, add the failed aioli into it while turning without stopping with the pestle. You should then have succeeded. This is what is called bringing the aioli back.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul himself gives certain Provençal names in this recipe: Aïoli (“aioli” in the dictionary). The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the other words used, in mistralian spelling: each of these forms is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary, and the link opens the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| veno | clove of garlic |
| mourtié | mortar |
| trissoun | pestle |
| jaune | egg yolk |
| òli | oil |
| poumado | paste |
| citroun | lemon |
| aiet | garlic |
| sau | salt |
| iòu | egg |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 45, page 31. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.