Hold the Mayo! First Up, Rouille.

I CONSIDER myself a competent cook. I’ve baked ethereal soufflés, wrapped lamb legs in suet and even mastered puff pastry. But making mayonnaise in the blender? It brings me to my knees.

It should be easy. Julia Child wrote that it’s so simple that “no culinary skill whatsoever enters into its preparation.”

Yet every time I’ve tried it, the sauce implodes into a curdled mess.

A less obsessed person would give up on homemade mayo. But I love the stuff, which, when properly made by other people, turns canned tuna into ambrosia. The jarred fluff just can’t compare.

And then there are mayonnaise’s kissing cousins: aioli (garlic mayonnaise) and rouille (spicy saffron mayonnaise). It’s one thing for me to make do with Hellmann’s on a turkey club, but quite another to forsake aioli and rouille, neither of which is easily bought even in the swankiest market.

It was a desire for rouille (pronounced roo-EE) that made me summon my courage. I was reminiscing with my mother about trips to Southern France. I loved when she would order a thick, rich fish soup that was served with croutons, grated cheese and a bowl of garlic-imbued rouille. She sipped the soup while I dunked the croutons in rouille and cheese. There was no better lunch when I was 8.

If I could figure how to make rouille without breaking it, I knew I would slather it on everything from grilled fish to grilled cheese. I found several recipes calling for ingredients ranging from fish livers to potato. But none sounded like the silky rouilles I remembered.

Finally, I opened my Larousse Gastronomique and there it was: a mix of egg yolks, saffron, garlic, cayenne and olive oil. The instructions were terse. Mash the garlic, then whisk in the yolks and, gradually, the oil. Grinding garlic to a paste in my blender was impossible, so I lugged out my mortar and pestle and smashed the garlic to a pulp. I was about to transfer it to the blender to test fate when I had another idea: finish the sauce with the mortar and pestle. Maybe unplugged was the way to go.

I tried it, pounding the yolks with the seasonings and adding the oil in driblets. Three minutes later, with no culinary skill employed, I had a thick, glossy mound. Unlike a wimpier mayonnaise, the rouille packed a pungent wallop with a musky saffron kick.

I put it in the fridge while debating what to smear it on. Chicken thighs? Zucchini frittata? In the end, I defrosted the tender little lamb chops I’d been hoarding in the freezer for a special occasion. A successful rouille seemed like as good an excuse as any.

So I rubbed the rouille all over the chops, then plopped them on the grill. The rouille helped the chops char while they absorbed all that garlicky-saffron flavor, which was underscored by a dollop of sauce on the side and a garnish of sweet cherry tomatoes.

Now that I’ve mastered rouille, maybe it’s time to revisit mayonnaise — made with a mortar and pestle, of course.