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Well the day has come, what I'm now calling 'the garlic season' is over here in the pnw. My super duper local farm gave me some of the most recently harvested garlic but its more than 2 weeks old and it is already over the hill. The aioli it makes is starting to become too pungent. The fresh stuff I was getting for the past 9 weeks (leaves green or just starting to turn yellow) would make a delicious sweet and grassy concoction straight up and it would be gone as soon as I put it on the table.
I am all ears if anyone knows how to make aioli without very recently harvested garlic. I've used lemon and vinegar, tried soaking the mashed cloves in lemon or vinegar, etc, and yes this prevents the extreme pungency but doesn't taste good. Stretching with egg makes a pungent spread but lacks the spectrum of flavors that the fresh stuff makes.
I've travelled a bit in spain and france and I did have fantastic aioli at a few very good restaurants, but in the stores where I was the garlic was not at all fresh and if I use it with my naive recipe it will burn my mouth and throat and stomach.
The whole 'fresh garlic' thing seems like a big deal to me so I don't understand why its not advertised more broadly. In fact what I used to call 'fresh garlic' isn't actually fresh, its been cured, I guess its just more recent than the king tut stuff. Actual 'fresh garlic' seems to be a pretty rare commodity in the world.
I imagine there's some people that understand this extremely well but I've never met any. Maybe this only matters for aioli where the freshness is critical for the stuff to be edible. I love using masses of cured garlic in everything else.
I've got no family history with aioli, I'm coming at this by chasing my taste buds. I would really like to hear from people with experience. Next time Im at a restaurant that serves good aioli I'll make an effort to cross examine the chef.
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