The very first job I was given to do as an apprentice at the Normandie Restaurant et Bar was to make garlic butter for the snails that were a permanent fixture on M. Champeau’s menu. It was a particularly fine recipe that had been worked out to exacting proportions over many years. It involved a quite astonishing amount of garlic—more than I could believe possible.
At that time (1973), the machinery in the kitchen did not include a sufficiently large or efficient enough mixer with which to combine all the ingredients satisfactorily, so it was a “hands-in” job. One large bowl, all that garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs, seasonings, and enough butter to build a mountain. It was an interesting introduction to my chosen career, but a thought kept coming to me as I ended that first day: would I ever rid my hands of the smell?
Garlic frying is, without doubt, one of those smells that makes you want to eat instantly, rather like bacon grilling, onions frying, and hot chips with vinegar. The intoxicating aroma of garlic cooking in butter, or olive oil, is a salivating one, and I have a vivid memory of those snails appearing from M. Champeau’s oven, sizzling and bubbling in garlic butter. Phew! That smell, off my hands at last and into those glorious snails.
Garlic is not all pungency and odor, however. Beautiful and creamy soft purées can be made from garlic, as can mellow sauces to serve with roast lamb, for instance. For this, the peeled cloves of garlic are blanched a couple of times in water and then braised slowly in flavorsome stock with wine and herbs. Liquidized with some of the stock, butter, or olive oil, and a little cream, the garlic is transformed into a velvety smooth sauce that would pacify the hardiest of garlic-haters.
One of the nicest seasonal things to look forward to is the arrival of new garlic in the spring. The heads are large and covered in a soft, greeny-white skin, as opposed to the more usual papery, parchment-like coating. These are, of course, the very same fresh bulbs that will be stored and dried for use later in the year. And the best, incidentally, is the pink-skinned garlic that usually comes from the south of France.
It was while reading a Chez Panisse recipe by Alice Waters that I first discovered that you could cook a whole head of new garlic.
Single-handedly, Alice Waters created what is now known as Californian cuisine. Through a deep love and respect for ingredients, and the seasonal diversity of produce, she has influenced many cooks and restaurateurs.
I visited Chez Panisse in Berkeley, San Francisco, for the first time in February 1992. By this time, it was in its twenty-first year and, without beating about the bush, I ate, on two occasions, some of the finest food I have ever tasted. It had a wonderful freshness of flavor in what seemed to be effortless cooking. But of course it wasn’t. I recall a stunning pizza made with chanterelles, some stewed clams with wine and herbs, and a green salad, the like of which I had never eaten before: “morning-gathered,” “dew-fresh,” “garden grown” for once meant just that.
We can all learn and inwardly digest Alice’s beliefs and philosophies by reading her intelligent, original, and inspiring books.
8 heads of new season garlic
¾ cup olive oil
4 thyme sprigs
1 rosemary sprig
2 bay leaves
1 lemon, cut into 6 wedges
salt and pepper
6 oz goat’s cheese (preferably rindless and not too ripe)
6 tbsp heavy cream
½ tsp dried chilli flakes (no seeds)
salt
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Slice off the tops of the garlic heads about a quarter of the way into the bulbs. Pack snugly into an ovenproof dish that will take them in one layer. Pour in the olive oil and tuck in the thyme, rosemary, and bay leaves. Give each wedge of lemon a gentle squeeze over the garlic, and then tuck them in too. Season with salt and pepper and put in the oven. Have a look after 10 minutes to see if the oil is bubbling. If so, turn the temperature down to 325°F and bake for a further 40–50 minutes. The garlic should bake slowly in order to give it a melting softness.
Meanwhile, mash the goat’s cheese as smooth as possible and stir in the cream. Add the chilli to taste, and salt if necessary. Remove the garlic from the oven and allow to cool. Serve lukewarm, straight from the dish, with the goat’s cheese in a bowl, a basket of toasted country bread, and bunches of watercress. The thing to do is to help yourself to a garlic bulb, ease out a clove, and smear it on the bread. Spread with goat’s cheese and eat.
These garlic cloves are so good that they could be eaten on their own as nibbles with drinks, but more often than not this is something I would serve with roast lamb, grilled duck breast, or steak. The garlic cloves are lovely tucked into a green salad, or a frisée salad with chunks of crisp duck confit. They are simplicity itself to make, and up to the time of frying they can be prepared in advance. The quantities in the recipe are for serving them as an accompaniment to another dish. Naturally, if you want to eat them on their own, you should cook more.
28 large garlic cloves, peeled
2 cups light chicken stock
seasoned flour for dusting
2 eggs, beaten
8 tbsp fresh breadcrumbs
oil for deep-frying
Put the garlic cloves in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and poach for a minute or so. Drain and then repeat this process, using fresh water. Finally, cook the garlic in the chicken stock for about 10 minutes or until soft. Watch out for overcooking, as they can suddenly collapse. Carefully drain, reserving the stock for another dish (Garlic Purée or Garlic Sauce, for example—see below). Allow the garlic cloves to cool, then roll them in seasoned flour, then in beaten egg, and finally in the breadcrumbs. Handle them as little as possible. When in the flour and breadcrumbs, space the cloves well apart, and rotate and shake the dish or tray they are in, rather than touching them. Leave them in the breadcrumbs until ready to fry. Heat the oil, preferably in a deep-fryer, to 375°F, and cook the cloves for 1-2 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and season lightly with salt.
These two recipes are easily made by following the Deep-Fried Garlic recipe (see above) up to the stage of draining them from the chicken stock, and puréeing them with a little of the reduced stock and some cream. Butter (or olive oil) is the other ingredient to be added, both for flavor and richness, but also as a thickener and emulsifier.
28 garlic cloves, peeled
2 cups light chicken stock
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp red currant jelly
½ cup butter, melted
juice of ½ lemon
salt and pepper
To make Garlic Purée, follow the instructions for poaching the garlic cloves given for Deep-Fried Garlic (see above). After cooking the cloves in the chicken stock, drain them carefully and reduce the stock by half. Put the cloves and ½ cup plus 2 tbsp reduced stock in a blender with all the remaining ingredients, and blend to a purée. Serve warm.
To make Garlic Sauce, repeat the above and add 1 cup heavy cream. Heat gently before serving.
Unlike in my apprentice days at the Normandie, when my hands stank for days after making this butter manually, hopefully we all now have the use of kitchen machinery. This is the most intensely garlicky of butters but may be used for any number of dishes. It is important to include the breadcrumbs when preparing it for use with snails, or anything else that is going to be cooked in their shells in the oven, such as mussels or clams, as the crumbs help form a crust. However, if you are making this butter for melting over a grilled steak or fish, then omit the crumbs.
This recipe uses 1 lb of butter, which you may think is a lot. It is, but it will all be used up if you are preparing a dozen snails for four people. It is also easier to measure and mix the ingredients when making this amount. If you have some left over, roll it into a sausage shape, wrap it in foil, and store it in the freezer. It is one of the most useful things to have around.
2 cups unsalted butter, softened
2 oz peeled garlic, as fresh as possible, finely chopped
3 oz flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
½ cup dry breadcrumbs
¼ cup Pernod
1½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp cayenne
5 drops of Tabasco sauce
Put the butter and garlic in an electric mixer and beat together. Blanch half the parsley briefly in boiling water. Drain, refresh under cold running water, and squeeze dry. Chop this and the remaining parsley as finely as possible. Add to the butter with the remaining ingredients and beat together until thoroughly blended.
This light and fragrant broth reminds me a little of avgolemono, to which beaten egg is added at the last minute. In this soup, chopped sorrel is introduced with the egg to retain its sharp taste and freshness. If you can find new season’s garlic, use that. If not, use the freshest garlic you can find, preferably the sort with purple/pink skin.
10 sage leaves
6 thyme sprigs
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
a good pinch of saffron threads
2 small dried chillies, crumbled
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 cups (1 quart) water
1 chicken stock (bouillon) cube
salt and pepper
1 large baking potato, peeled and finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
2 handfuls of sorrel leaves, picked over, washed, dried, and coarsely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small baguette, sliced, rubbed with a garlic clove, and cut into ½-inch cubes
3 tbsp olive oil
2 heaped tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
Separate the garlic cloves, don’t peel them but bash them with the back of a heavy knife or cleaver. They only need to be lightly crushed, not smashed to smithereens. Put them in a stainless steel saucepan with the sage, thyme, cloves, bay leaf, saffron, chillies, onion, and vinegar. Add the water, stock cube, and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, skim away any impurities that come to the surface, reduce the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425°F. Prepare the croûtons by rolling the bread cubes first in the olive oil, and then in the Parmesan. Place on a wire rack that is resting on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 10–15 minutes or until crisp and golden.
Add the potato to the soup, cover, and simmer gently for a further 30 minutes. Strain through a colander, pressing down on the solids to extract all their flavor. Return to a clean saucepan. Remove two ladlefuls of soup to a large bowl and, in a thin stream, pour in the eggs, whisking all the time. Set aside. Add the sorrel to the pan, stir in the egg liaison, and reheat gently, taking care not to let the soup boil. Pour into individual soup bowls and anoint each with a stick of olive oil. Serve the croûtons separately.