Dish · lebanese
Toum
Toum is a Lebanese garlic sauce made without egg, just garlic, oil, and lemon juice whipped into a stiff, white emulsion sharp enough to sting on its own.
Where it comes from
The sauce relies on garlic's own starch to hold the emulsion together instead of egg yolk, a technique that lets it stay stable at room temperature far longer than mayonnaise style sauces.
What cooks argue about
The whole dish is a fight against breaking: adding the oil too fast splits the emulsion, so cooks argue over how slowly to stream it and whether ice water rescues a broken batch.
Versions
Nobody has published a toum here yet. When somebody cooks one from a video and publishes it, their version appears in this list, with a link back to the original.
What goes in it
Each one opens everything else made with it.
garlic
vegetable oil