Aoli Adventures.

Aoli and chips. I lived for over 23 years without knowing what this tasted like, and now I know that they were wasted years. The only problem with the stuff is it changes everywhere you go. Cheaper places tend to taste like minced garlic from a jar mixed with mayonnaise, which while edible is not the best. I found some at the supermarket but it had a weird plastic-y taste to it, not very cool. I think the best I have had was at this new cafe in town which is in the old post office, or was it the council chambers? Eh, either way, I got some fish and chips and they gave me some mad perfect aoli, and home made ginger beer which sometimes visits me in my dreams, sigh. I figured that it tasted so good because they made it themselves and because they used all good fresh ingredients. And so the challenge was set.

I looked up a few recipes on the internet and ended up with this one because it had lime in the title and lime ALWAYS = win. Ive never made anything mayonnaise-y before so it freaked me out a little that I was going to make something out of raw egg yolks but I persevered. Yeah, I'm a trooper. After eating this, I definitely think that I, and all other people who ate this earned the right to be called troopers, man alive was this stuff garlicky! And not just like "oh no, I'm gonna need a tic tac!" garlicky, this had like, burning your taste buds levels of garlic. I put this on some fish, then i scraped alot off my fish, then I put some tomato sauce on my chips and went "what? did I accidentally get bbq sauce??" the answer was no, the garlic had just broken my tongue and everything tasted weird as a result. The only person who was a fan was Dad who even used it again the next morning on toast for breakfast. Supertrooper. I think that this recipe would be amazing with ALOT less garlic, that's why I'm sharing the recipe, I think it has potential, I hope you aren't too scared to give it a go!

Pouring in the oil, so so much oil... but i guess that's just how mayonnaise works...

Giving it a good mix, the oil kept gathering at the bottom where the blades couldn't get to it so I had to keep stopping it and giving it a stir.

All done! Looking a little like pureed curried eggs or something, eek. Wow, I'm just really talking this stuff up aren't I! I'm sorry, please ignore my descriptions, I think that with the changes I'm gonna make below we could have a real aoli winner on our hands. You have to trust me, imagine yourself standing on the end of the titanic, you are rose, i am jack, do you trust me? I promise this won't end with us freezing our bums off in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, promise.

Lime Aoli

From Taste (really great website, it has recipes from a few food magazines all in the one place. I always buy Super Food Ideas and Recipes+ but when I cant be bothered looking through these for dinner ideas I pop on this site.)

• 2 limes
• 4 egg yolks
• 2tsp dijon mustard
• 250mls/1cup light olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped (so many things wrong with this one, well, two, but they are two very big things. For one, WAY too much garlic, 6?? Really?? I cant believe I even believed this would be a good idea... The new wise Michelle would go for 2 cloves and have a taste. And for number two, i want my garlic to be as small as possible in this sort of thing so I crushed it)
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Finely grate the limes and reserve a little to garnish. (it says to julienne the rind of one of the limes, but like the garlic, i decided that smaller was better). Juice the limes and measure out 1 1/2T of the juice.
2. Place the egg yolks, lime juice and mustard in a food processor.
3. With the motor running add the olive oil drop by drop until the mayonnaise begins to thicken.
4. Continue to add oil in a thin steady stream until well combined.
5. Add garlic and grated lime and process to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I was expecting it to get thicker so left it processing for ages but it doesn't really need to, it's a sauce afterall!)
6. Serve it out and garnish with leftover lime rind.