In my French teaching days, I used to tell students to torture words: chop them, axe them to bits, they'll soon reveal their secrets. Take Aioli (pronunced I-o-lee), cut it in two, you get: Ai + oli. Being a French student you would have known that Ail means garlic and oli with a bit of imagination could be ...oil...olive. Of course it's not a perfect science but it's better than giving up before even starting, plus the context should give you the rest of the clues.
Aioli is an emulsion in the same way than mayonnaise is, a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally unblendable (lemon and oil for example). Egg-yolk can be used to blend, mustard and garlic too have emulsion-producing properties. Therefore Aioli can be made with egg-yolk, the Provencal way, or without, the Catalan way.
There is a third way, with garlic and bread. I havn't got a clue, why in the family we called this Aioli, Greek mayonnaise. It's the perfect accompaniment for cold fish such as salmon or white fish. It's an absolute delight, not for the faint hearted as it contains quite a lot of garlic. As Pebble Soup is about to enter the 6 weeks of Fish challenge with Fish is the Dish, we had a little rehearsal with my Dad's Greek Mayonnaise.
Ingredients:
Inside of 1/2 white bread loaf
5 to 10 gloves of garlic (pressed)
1/2 lemon juice
Olive oil.
Salt and Pepper
Method:
Cut the crust off a loaf of white bread, keep the inside only
Put the bread in a bowl and wet thoroughly with water.
squeeze all the water out
add the pressed garlic and the lemon juice
with a whisk ( I use a fork) add the olive oil until you get something which reassemble a mayonnaise in texture
Serve with cold steamed fish.
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