The Super bowl of dips...

Omg, I made Toum!! Toum, a Lebanese garlic dip which I was told is perfect for just about everything under the sun was my experiment tonight after an impromptu invite to a friend's house for a Super bowl party.

I'm not much into football, but they asked me to do something for appetizers.

Another friend had sent me this recipe a while back that he swears is from some coolio south LA restaurant that people kill to get into. Though being LA and all people probably kill to get into the right t-shirt shop de jour, too. 

On surface it's simple, but I skirted disaster, failure and dejection and finally ennui before achieving success and godhead.

a half cup of garlic gloves peeled

a cup of neutral oil

2 table spoons of fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp of kosher salt

puree the garlic and salt and then s...l...o...w...l...y drizzle the oil and lemon juice - Did I emphasize slowly - at medium whip in my food processor until it emulsifies (thickens) into a gloppy texture somewhere between drywall mud or mayonnaise. 

Easy as pie. almost. Being an impatient man when it comes to eating garlic, I went too fast on the oil addition and it separated and became more like very pungent milk than flutterly mayonaise-esque angels wings of garlicy love. I despaired at all the wasted garlic and was ready to toss out another failure, <sob>.

The Internet tubes didn't let me down though, as a simple Google search for "Help, my Toum separated" suggested calm resolute action. Some egg white, more garlic and a slower whip speed (and halving the amount in the blender) and kaboom, it whipped up into frothy, peaked bit of heaven.

It was so good we used it for dipping some home made Spring rolls in, as a dipping sauce for some gamazing chicken wings and of course glopping it onto  some thin sliced Acme bread toast.

The second sauce I made for the party was my Sekrit  salsa verde:

cilantro, mint from my garden, a jalapeño and some crushed garlic slathered with virgin olive oil into a slendiforous, fragrent and slightly eye-opening dip.  Again perfect for the wings, the spring rolls and the toast. 

I was so enjoying munching out in the kitchen and helping my pal Chris whip up a giant pot of Cioppino that I pretty much forgot to watch the game.  I saw Katy Perry and some dancing sharks for a minutes, but that's pretty much all I remember. 

When I went home, I left the sauces for the party hosts to enjoy, cause that's the way I roll, bubba.