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Are you a dip person? I am. If I could have some sort of dipping sauce with every meal and even more specifically an aioli, I would. Eating AIP-friendly has its challenges but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on dipping your sweet potato fries into a punchy aioli.
Traditionally this sauce is called toum. It is a Lebanese sauce that is added to sandwiches or as a dip. The same chemical reaction called “emulsification” that happens while making mayonnaise is what happens when you combine acidic garlic and lemon with a fatty substance like avocado oil. Blending them together causes them to thicken into a mayonnaise-like consistency.
When making this sauce, it’s important to make sure that the garlic is smooth before you add the lemon and oil otherwise it won’t emulsify properly. Also, to dull some of the bitter bunch of garlic, you can slice the garlic in half and remove garlic germ (the center vein). You can use this as a marinade or a sauce. Store in the fridge for up to two weeks.
- ⅓ cup fresh garlic cloves
- ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- 2 cups avocado oil
- 1-2 teaspoons salt
- In a food processor, combine the salt and garlic. Blend until very smooth. You may have to pause and scrape down the sides of the processor.
- Add about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and process for about 15 seconds to distribute the lemon juice.
- Slowly add about half a cup of avocado oil while processing. Make sure that the consistency resembles mayonnaise before moving on.
- Add the remaining lemon juice and process for about 15 seconds to distribute the lemon juice.
- Slowly add remaining avocado oil while processing. Store in fridge up to 2 weeks.
3 comments
I tried this tonight and the end result was great, but I had to make a few modifications to have success that I’ll share in case anyone else has issues. First, I did use garlic I’ve been lacto-fermenting, so that may have affected my results.
I tried following the recipe as written and after slooowwlllyy adding the first 1/2 cup of oil, I had a soupy mess that wasn’t emulsified at all (and trust me, I really blended the heck out of my garlic before adding oil). I did some sleuthing and found other recipes usually call for about 1/3-1/2 cup of garlic per cup of oil, so I made another batch of garlic paste, slowly dribbled the oily garlic mess into it and started to see emulsion. It looks like it’s suggested in some places to alternate 1 tsp lemon juice then 1/2 cup oil and so on, so I did that as well.
The result definitely isn’t as light and fluffy as Toum usually is (again, maybe due to my fermented garlic, but I also suspect it may have to do with the avocado oil rather than canola oil – but the loss of fluff is a very worthwhile trade of course!), but it does have a lovely, silky texture akin to mayo and the flavor is delicious. We ate it with sweet potato fries, over pan fried broccoli, and with fish mixed with chimichurri – so good! I’ve really missed having something yummy to dip my baked carbs into since going AIP and this fit the bill nicely.
OMG…so delicious and easy to make. I’ll have garlic breath for days as I can’t stop eating it!!!
We have been making this since we visited Dubai a few years ago. We absolutely LOVE it!! Even my 2 year old enjoys licking it off of her fingers! 🙂