What Is Toum?
Toum is essentially a mayonnaise, but it’s stabilized with garlic instead of egg. Just like mayo, toum is an emulsion of oil into water, made possible with the help of a third-party emulsifier.
An emulsion always involves two incompatible liquids brought together by dispersing one into tiny droplets suspended throughout the other. This can be done with vigorous shaking and agitation—like when you’re whisking oil into a vinaigrette—but without an emulsifier, the coupling is only temporary. Emulsifiers and stabilizers help droplets stay dispersed by coating each one and reducing the surface tension, preventing them from coalescing.
Mayo is a stable emulsion because the lecithin and proteins in an egg are some of the most powerful emulsifiers around. One egg is capable of emulsifying one gallon of oil, resulting in a stiff and spreadable sauce. A properly made toum will be just as thick, and densely packed with billions of oil droplets, but it’s all held together with the far less stable proteins and pulverized plant tissues of garlic. This makes bringing toum together a more delicate process than making mayo, but with some patience, you can avoid pitfalls.
