Classic Aioli

• Aioli is similar to mayonnaise, but if you were to call it as such in its birthplace -- Provence -- your choice of terminology would be met with disdain at best and sweeping rebuke at worst. Aioli differs from mayo in ingredients, not technique. For a Japanese-influenced aioli, substitute malt and rice vinegar for the traditional lemon juice.

  For every 1 cup of aioli, pulverize 8 or 9 peeled garlic cloves in a mortar and pestle until a paste forms. Garlic paste spreads its pungent bite throughout the sauce, saving you and your guests from the small-scale sensory assault that occurs when you chew raw garlic.

  Transfer the garlic paste to a food processor. Pulse 4 pasteurized egg yolks and about 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard into the paste and let the ingredients coalesce for 5 to 10 minutes.

  Add a few drops of olive oil while whisking enthusiastically. When the yolks and oil start to thicken, trickle in 1 cup of olive oil in a steady stream while processing the aioli on high -- measuring cups with a lip for pouring make slow-and-steady pouring easy. When the aioli thickens to a mayonnaise-like consistency, add 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar and 1 tablespoon of malt vinegar.

  If the aioli breaks, reemulsify it by processing in 1/2 to 1 egg yolk at high speed. To prevent aioli from breaking, add 1 teaspoon of soy lecithin when you add the Dijon mustard.

Quick Aioli

• Use olive-oil mayonnaise as the base for a quick-and-easy aioli. Homemade mayonnaise breaks easily. Temperature changes, adding a few too many drops of oil, and even bumping its container too hard against the table can separate the emulsion. Commercial mayo is shelf-stable for months because it contains xanthan gum or a comparable stabilizer or emulsifier. Homemade mayonnaise is only as shelf-stable as the unaided emulsion, which is inherently fragile.

  To make a Japanese-style aioli with mayonnaise, first pulverize 8 or 9 garlic cloves to a paste and add it to a food processor. Next, add 1 cup of olive-oil mayonnaise and process in 1/2 tablespoon each of malt vinegar and rice vinegar.

Primary Flavorings

• Every sauce has primary and secondary flavoring ingredients. In Japanese-style ginger aioli, ginger fills the primary spot. You don't need much ginger, only about 1 tablespoon per cup of aioli. Grating, not mincing, the ginger is key at this step. On par with garlic in the pungency department, a bite of raw ginger is enough to take over your taste buds for a couple of minutes. The tool of choice -- a rasp grater -- shaves ginger into a fluffy essence fine enough to perfume the aioli without taking it hostage.

  Grate a 1/2-inch piece of ginger into each 1 cup of aioli. If you don't have a rasp grater, use the fine blades of a box grater instead.

Secondary Flavorings

• Now you have a basic ginger aioli; it has everything required of it, except that difficult-to-describe "oomf" commonly referred to as umami. The closest word in English for umami is "savory," but savory and its synonyms, delectable and delicious, don't do it justice. Umami comes from glutamate, an amino acid found in mushrooms, tomatoes, beef and pork, to name a few of the thousands of glutamate-rich foods.

  To elevate ginger aioli from good to remarkable, you have to add just enough umami-rich ingredients to detect their effect but not enough to stand in front of the aioli and ginger. A scant pinch each of hon-dashi powder and monosodium glutamate powder in each cup of aioli does the trick. Hon-dashi powder, or powdered dashi stock, and monosodium glutamate, sourced from vegetable proteins, are both used in Japanese mayonnaise for their savory investment.

  Hon-dashi isn't a common ingredient outside of Japanese markets. As an alternative, use a pinch of powdered chicken broth -- it doesn't have the same flavor, but imparts umami all the same.

Final Seasoning and Garnishing

• Taste the ginger aioli and adjust the seasoning with sugar and kosher salt. A pinch of sugar per cup of ginger aioli smooths out any rough edges, and a pinch of salt ties everything together. After you get the aioli's taste where you want it, give it a final stir. Store ginger aioli in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Ginger aioli made with egg yolks has a shelf life of one to two weeks.