After adding each half cup of oil, add spoonfuls of lemon juice and water. This prevents breaking the emulsion by not overcrowding the liquid phase with too many droplets of oil. Alternating oil and water will yield a fluffy, thick, and stable garlic sauce. Add more oil for a thicker and milder spread or garlic dip, less for a more pungent and free-flowing sauce.
How to Fix Toum When It Breaks
Sometimes, even when you’ve delicately drizzled in oil and patiently made your garlic paste, this fussy sauce still breaks—perhaps because the food processor overheated the toum, or the garlic was old and dry. Don’t worry, you can harness the emulsifying powers of an egg white to bring it back together. Combine one egg white with a quarter cup of the broken emulsion and process until fluffy before slowly pouring in the rest. Although this won’t be a traditional toum, it will be delicious and creamy.
Stocked with homemade toum, you’ll never be left to suffer the whims of miserly takeout portions or greedy partners again.S
