IN THE KITCHEN WITH GARLIC
How to Chop, Preserve, and Cook with Garlic
Oh, holy to the nose are the incense and sizzle that summonfolks from all parts of the houseto ask about dinner, sniffing...
DAVID YOUNG, “Chopping Garlic”
I noticed a long time ago that it wasn’t until a clove was squashed in my garlic press that its unique fragrance suddenly bloomed and trumpets blared. I’m ashamed to say I never wondered why until a handful of years ago. Then I discovered that allicin, which gives garlic its unique taste and aroma—as well as most of its medicinal value—is created only when alliin (a sulfur compound known as S-allyl cysteine sulfoxide) and alliinase (an enzyme), which are contained in separate compartments inside the clove, come together. When a clove of garlic is cut or smashed, the two elements are released, producing allyl sulfenic acid, which immediately changes into allicin, chemically known as diallyl thiosulfate. It’s a complicated chemical reaction, and it all happens in ten seconds.
More chemical reactions follow, releasing other compounds that contribute to garlic’s taste as well as its therapeutic value. It’s fascinating to realize that a mere smash of your knife can start a cascade of chemical interactions. This simple plant, which has been a kitchen staple for thousands of years, has become so important medicinally that scientists are studying it. We use garlic as often as onions and salt, but that doesn’t mean we understand why it tastes the way it does or, more important, how the ways we prepare and cook it affect both its flavor and its benefits.
Raw garlic smashed and chopped finely or put through a press and used right away has, as experienced cooks know, the strongest taste. No, I’m wrong—a whole clove crushed by your very own teeth in your very own mouth has the strongest taste and the most therapeutic value, though not many people like their garlic that way.
The best way to get the ultimate flavor and greatest health benefits from garlic is to eat it raw or exposed to heat for as little time as possible. Raw garlic is a desirable taste in many sauces, spreads, and salads, such as aioli, chimichurri, pesto, tapenade, hummus, and tabbouleh, as well as cold soups like gazpacho and garlic-almond soup. Most of these dishes, you may notice, originated in warmer regions, such as the Mediterranean, South America, Spain, and the Middle East, where garlic was used as a preservative as well as a flavoring because of its antibacterial qualities—not, as many believe, because its strong taste disguised rotting food.
Some cooked dishes also benefit from a hit of raw garlic, like the easy pasta I sometimes make just for myself when Chris is off enjoying the company of his football buddies. It’s a simple concoction of leftover cooked linguine stirred with chicken stock, heavy cream, some grated lemon rind, and Parmesan cheese, with a chopped garlic clove tossed in just as the sauce thickens. Now that I know more about how garlic breaks down into that healthful allicin, I chop the garlic clove and let it sit for a few seconds, then remove the pan from the flame, let it cool a bit, and toss in the garlic. Even short contact with a bubbling hot sauce can kill the allicin. Along with a couple of grindings of black pepper, the garlic adds just the right kick to what could otherwise be an ordinary pasta dish. A soup or stew that’s been cooked with a few spoonfuls of chopped garlic will have a more vivid flavor and therapeutic value if you drop in a little chopped raw garlic just before serving it or top each serving with a few bits. I like a little extra raw garlic on a nice big steak, too, even if it’s been rubbed with garlic before cooking.
Garlic can taste almost any way you want it to, depending on how you treat it.
LUCY WAVERMAN, food editor and cookbook author
Now that I buy and grow different cultivars and have a variety of garlic to choose from, I’ve learned to taste a bit of the one I’m going to use raw before tossing it in. Some varieties are hotter than others, and it is a good idea to make a few tasting notes as you experiment so you’ll remember, say, that ‘German Red’ was just fine as a garnish on the goulash but that ‘Susan Delafield’ needs taming and is better roasted, unless you have a cast-iron tongue. In general, Creoles and Rocamboles—everyone’s favorite garlic—have a sweeter, less hot flavor than Porcelains and Silverskins. But there are exceptions among the cultivars; see “A Garlic Primer” for some guidelines.
RAW GARLIC is the perfect match for some foods, but other recipes, like the classic French chicken with forty cloves of garlic, require the mellow taste of whole cooked garlic cloves—and hang the therapeutic content. Garlic roasted as whole cloves to go with the Sunday roast contains no allicin or other sulfur compounds whatsoever. It’s mellowed out, and many varieties that sting your mouth when raw lie down in lovely submission when cooked. This isn’t a bad thing—there’s nothing tastier than roasted garlic with the top cut off and olive oil poured over the exposed cloves. It’s great smeared on a steak. Or blended into a wine sauce. Or mixed with olive oil and parsley and spread on toasted ciabatta. Roasted garlic may not have the health benefits of raw garlic, but who knows what other medicinal elements this amazing bulb produces when it’s cooked?
Garlic that’s crushed and chopped in even the most allicin-preserving way and then overbrowned in the sauté pan suffers the worst fate of all. Not only has the allicin been destroyed by the heat, the guts are fried out of the garlic taste, leaving it acrid and useless. Garlic should be gently sautéed till it’s faintly tan and fragrant, and although that may not preserve the allicin, some of the other sulfur compounds will remain and the flavor will be developed, not ruined. Many recipes begin with onions being lightly browned in butter or oil, with garlic added as the onions properly color. I try to add the garlic at just the right moment so that both it and the onions develop their sweetness but aren’t ruined by too much browning. It’s a fine line.
Acids such as vinegar and lemon or lime juice also destroy allicin and much of garlic’s taste. Remember this when you push a clove of garlic through your press directly into the vinegar in your vinaigrette. Push it into a bowl instead, or chop it on a board, and give it ten seconds to complete its magical transformation before adding it to an acid ingredient. Some of its compounds will be destroyed by the acid, but some will remain.
Chopping and Prepping
Chopping garlic is how I start dinner. It puts me in the mood for cooking and signals that the relaxed part of the day is nigh. Even the cats know it’s time to meow for supper once they hear the knife and sniff that pungent smell. The smell of garlic makes everyone smile.
There’s no special art to chopping garlic, but you have to do it a few times to get the hang of it. The first step, after freeing a clove from the bulb, is to get its tight little jacket off, the hardest part. You need strong fingers to squash the clove between thumb and forefinger to loosen the skin, but I’ve seen a few manly cooks do it. I used to cut the end off the clove and laboriously peel the skin off with my fingernails, a real drag with small cloves, but after seeing it in a movie a dozen years ago I adopted the knife smack common to today’s TV chefs. This technique not only is more efficient but also makes you look like a pro: lay the clove on a board, place the flat of a chef’s knife blade on top of it, and whack the knife with the heel of your hand. It’s a bit messy, with skin scattering over the board like big dandruff flakes and the garlic lying in pieces, but it’s the quickest way, and you can add variations to your whack. A light one provides a slightly flattened clove that might be just right for flavoring a Caesar dressing or some oil that needs just a faint garlic taste; a more murderous whack will squash the garlic like a fly and render it less in need of severe chopping.
If time isn’t a problem, try soaking the cloves in a bowl of water for a couple of hours. The skin will pull off easily, leaving the cloves intact and perfect for sautéing or roasting (or for making chicken with forty cloves of garlic), and there will be no need for messy peeling at the table. The softneck varieties, which have tighter skins, require a good soak, after which you have to get your fingernail under one end of the clove to release the skin, but then it peels off nicely. Rocamboles and other hardneck types usually give up their coverings more easily.
There’s another way to get the skin off: use one of those rubber squares sold to help unscrew tight lids. Fold the cloves in the rubber, press down, and roll back and forth. Voilà: skinned garlic. You can also buy a garlic roller-peeler some smart marketing person came up with to solve the problem. It’s made of the same type of textured rubber and looks like a giant manicotti tube. It’s well worth the few bucks it costs at most kitchen supply stores.
Once the clove is freed of its tight little jacket, start chopping. How to chop may seem elementary, my dear reader, but practice will make your technique look good and result in uniform pieces of garlic. Hold the handle of the knife with one hand and lay the palm of the other hand over the end of the blade, then rock the knife over the garlic. Move the handle end of the knife slightly as you cut to trace a quarter-circle shape on the board and cover all the garlic. The more you rock and move the knife back and forth, the finer the pieces will become. Scrape them up now and again and start over. It seems almost too obvious to mention, but finely minced garlic has more power and flavor than more coarsely chopped garlic.
“At Cordon Bleu they had us chop garlic with salt,” says Lucy Waverman, food columnist and cookbook author. “It makes the garlic creamier, and it doesn’t smell up the board as much. Once I chopped a lot of garlic in my food processor as a shortcut and then washed the bowl out and used it to make a dessert. Believe me, that was a big mistake.”
With wooden boards, too, you need to wash everything well afterward to make sure the taste is gone. You might keep a special board for chopping garlic, or if you use the salt method, mash it in a mortar with a pestle or in a small bowl with the back of a spoon. A food processor chops garlic well if other ingredients are going to be added to the bowl, but it’s useless for chopping a clove or two, because the garlic flies around and clings to the sides of the bowl and never reaches the texture you need.
Tools and Gadgets
Does a kitchen exist without a garlic press? It was the first “exotic” culinary gadget I bought, years ago, and it made me feel as if I’d graduated from Cooking 101. Trouble was, it was cheap aluminum—and you know how bendable aluminum can be. Before long it looked like a pretzel. The next one was also aluminum, but industrial strength, and plain as a garbage can. It didn’t even have a brand name, which most garlic presses seem to have these days.
That garlic press moved from house to house with me and lasted for at least thirty years. It did yeoman service until two springs ago, when Chris brought home a shiny new stainless steel one. It had no label, no identifying marks, a no-name press with no packaging. It was strong and beautiful, but by this time I’d graduated beyond the garlic press and was using a knife. And I felt pretty proud of myself for having advanced to this lofty plateau.
“I use my press only when I’m feeling incredibly lazy,” says Lucy. “And then I have to wash the darn thing, and it’s not easy getting those bits out. I control the texture of the garlic better when I chop it.”
Aye to all those points. Cleaning the press was what made me perfect my cutting technique. When I discovered the different ways garlic tasted and looked when I used a knife, I left the garlic press behind.
But some garlic presses elicit superlatives from users—especially the Zyliss Susi, which was made in Switzerland way back when and now is manufactured in China. It comes in two models, one that hinges backward and has little protruding bits that push out the garlic residue, and a bigger model that holds more than one clove (try pressing down on that with an arthritic wrist!) and has a nonstick interior. Paul Pospisil of the Garlic News raves about the ratcheting garlic press sold by Lee Valley Tools, which is said to crush up to four cloves of skin-on garlic at a time with a light squeeze of the handle. The removable screen and swing-out plate reportedly make it easy to clean, too.
SOME COOKS use a rasp to grate garlic. It sounds like a good idea if you want finely grated cloves. I’d be careful of my fingers, though—garlic cloves aren’t very big and they grate down quickly, which could add a spot or two of blood to the dinner. A friend recently introduced me to a neat stainless steel rasp she’d bought at a kitchen store. It’s a Microplane grater with a movable attachment that clamps over it with a knob on top and teeth underneath that hold the garlic (or ginger or nutmeg seed); you move it back and forth and the garlic is shredded finely. Garlic twisters, big at garlic fairs—where magicians demonstrate them and churn out bowls full of chopped garlic in seconds—are another option. I have two. Both are unnecessarily complicated, but one—the Nouveau Moulin à Ail, bought at the Fête de l’Ail Rose in Lautrec—turns out neat little squares of garlic without too much frustration. Chris likes it, but my knife is still faster.
But I do have a garlic-chopping friend that works better than my knife: the enigmatically named ulu. The Inuit made curved ulus in all sizes for removing seal skins and carving the meat, and I bet they never thought they’d see them used for chopping garlic. My ulu was given to me one Christmas by my daughter-in-law Chrissy, who loves garlic as much as I do. It’s a simple 8-inch (20-centimeter) wood square (mine has inlaid strips of dark and light wood), with a round depression taking up most of the center; the half-moon blade is set in a wooden handle. The knife exactly fits the depression and makes mincemeat of the garlic in no time. It’s the best garlic chopper I’ve ever used, and it also chops herbs beautifully. But remembering Lucy and her garlic-scented food processor, I scrub mine out frequently. I treat it to a good rub with vegetable oil about once a month, and I run a sharpening stone over the blade whenever it seems to need it.
Garlic keepers with (necessary) ventilation holes in the lid look neat on a shelf in the kitchen, but you don’t really need them. Unglazed pots are better than glazed ones, but any container will do as long as the garlic is kept dry and ventilated. I store my garlic in an open bowl on a shelf above my spices. What looks more inviting than a garlic braid or rope hanging from the pot rack? Or a mesh vegetable bin filled with cloves? But don’t expect to store a lot of garlic this way—in the warmth of your kitchen it will soon dry out. Keep only a month or two’s worth of garlic on display.
Unglazed terra-cotta garlic roasters with domed lids are another nonessential garlic accessory, but they beat aluminum foil packages on a couple of counts. First, they roast the garlic bulbs or cloves at an even temperature and it’s easier to scrape juices from their glazed bottoms than it is to struggle with a piece of crumpled super-hot foil. Second, they’re much prettier. I prefer my roaster—which holds one large clove or two small ones.
Preserving Garlic
This isn’t the same as storing garlic in a cool place for as far into the winter as your varieties will keep. This is about being creative with drying and freezing or otherwise preserving your precious garlic crop, or the mountain of bulbs you bought at a garlic fair, so that you can keep it past its best-before date.
“But why would you bother?” says Lucy, and she has a point if you live in a city with greengrocers who care enough to buy good garlic from Mexico or Argentina once our domestic product is used up for the season. They might also buy from companies like Gilroy’s Christopher Ranch that store their crop in climate-controlled warehouses to keep it fresh almost all year. But if you don’t live in a more enlightened community, by the time January rolls around you’ll have to settle for small supermarket garlic bulbs so old and badly stored they’re either sprouting or turning to dust. That’s when your very own preserved garlic is useful.
No one is indifferent to garlic. People either love it or hate it, and most good cooks seem to belong in the first group.
FAYE LEVY, food writer and cookbook author
WE HAVE a dry period from midwinter until the local new crop is ready, usually mid-August. Luckily I’ve been able to buy some pretty nice Purple Stripes from Argentina, where the seasons are nearly opposite to ours, so its garlic is ready when ours is done. But in the interests of research I’ve experimented with a few methods of preserving garlic, and I like freezing the best. Recently I thawed a few cloves that had spent a whole year in our deep freezer, which is colder than the freezer compartment of the fridge, and they were still strong and fresh. Like all frozen vegetables, they were a little translucent once thawed, but they retained a respectable amount of firm flesh.
There are several ways to freeze garlic, all of them dead easy. One is to immerse peeled whole or chopped cloves in water-filled ice cube trays and then put the frozen cubes in freezer bags. I put one whole clove or a teaspoon (5 mL) of chopped garlic in each tray section. I’ve thawed and roasted the whole cloves or dropped a whole cube into a soup I’m going to purée. The chopped garlic, thawed, works better for sautéing or in a stew or a regular soup where you don’t want the presence of whole cloves. For sautéing, thaw the cubes of chopped garlic in a small dish and don’t throw out the water—it’s redolent of garlic and is a terrific addition to gravy or sauces.
Or you can purée garlic with oil and freeze it in small containers; use a ratio of about two parts oil to one of garlic. Because the oil doesn’t completely freeze, you can spoon out what you need directly from the freezer. If you take the container out and it thaws and stays at room temperature for a length of time, don’t use it (see the sidebar “When Garlic Turns Deadly”).
The easiest way to freeze loose whole cloves is to leave the skin on and freeze them on a cookie sheet; then transfer them to containers. The next-easiest way is to peel them first. In my experience, both methods result in a softer, almost mushy texture compared with garlic frozen in water. But I suppose it hardly matters when you’re going to be cooking them until they’re soft.
Thawed garlic isn’t so great as a substitute for raw garlic used as a garnish, though it works just fine in vinaigrette. So does a tablespoon (15 mL) of the garlic water.
Garlic is my desert island vegetable.
MICHAEL SMITH, cookbook author and Food Network host
DRYING GARLIC requires more attention and to my mind is less satisfactory than freezing, but if you have a lot of garlic and no deep freezer, it’s the way to go. I’ve tried different methods—in the vegetable-and-fruit dehydrator that takes up space in my basement because I use it about every three years, in the microwave, and in the oven—and all kept the garlic well for several months. To start my experiment, I removed the skin from twenty cloves and sliced them about an eighth of an inch (0.4 centimeters) thick; that took nearly an hour and was the hardest part.
The dehydrator had no specific instructions for garlic, so I followed the general ones for potatoes, figuring garlic had about the same density and moisture content. I left the slices carefully laid out in the dehydrator for an hour at 97°F (36°C), then turned it up to 115°F (46°C) because I realized some summers are nearly that hot and it might take forever. After ten more hours they looked toasty and were brittle. After a month in a jar they’d softened a little but stayed strong, fragrant, and tasty until they were used by June of the following year.
IT’S DIFFICULT to get an ordinary electric oven down to just over 100°F (38°C), so I tried a couple of ways. First I heated the oven to 200°F (93°C)—the lowest mine will go—and left the slices in for seven minutes; then I turned off the oven and let the slices sit in it for a half-hour. I had toast-colored, very dry slices that looked brittle, but ten months later they still smelled strongly of garlic and reconstituted with good, if toasty, flavor. I let another batch sit an hour and fifteen minutes on a heated cast-iron pan in an oven preheated to 200°F (93°C) and then turned off before the garlic cloves went in, with the oven light left on to hold some heat. I liked them best at first—they were almost white and seemed properly dried, but although they retained their texture the flavor disappeared in about five months. A magazine article advised drying garlic cut in half at 140°F (60°C) for two hours and then lowering the temperature to 130°F (54°C) until the garlic pieces were totally dry and crisp. That seemed too much for the little guys, so I didn’t try it; later I read that commercially processed garlic is dried at 122 to 140°F (50 to 60°C). Only above that temperature do flavors start to break down.
The microwave, with the garlic zapped for a minute at a time at high until the garlic was crisp, seemed the most successful drying method in the beginning. The slices were pearly white and full flavored, but they smelled like peanuts after about five months and had severely diminished flavor.
So you can see there’s no hard-and-fast rule for drying garlic successfully. My most successful batch—if length of storage is a measure—was the first one (seven minutes with the heat on and half an hour in a turned-off oven). But all the garlic except the microwaved slices kept its goodness and flavor for as long as anyone might need.
The message is that you’re on your own. Successful drying is a matter of experimentation, and results probably depend on the moisture content of the garlic and its variety, as well as how thin the slices are.
Garlic vinegar is another way to save the garlic from your garden for future use, but I don’t think it’s an effective option for preserving a lot of garlic—how much vinegar do you need in a year, anyway? Still, made with garlic from your own garden and put up in good-looking bottles with handmade labels, it’s a great gift. Use wine vinegar, white or red, and drop in as many smashed or chopped cloves as you like. Add a sprig of rosemary or thyme and some peppercorns for appearance and extra taste, and you have an original dinner party gift.
Garlic Products
Garlic powder was the first garlic I cooked with because I knew nothing else, and it still has a place on my shelf. I think this shocked Lucy when I mentioned it. “I never use it,” she said. “It’s got a funny taste.”
I agree it can’t compare with fresh garlic, and sometimes it smells tinny to me in the package, but I find it useful. It’s better than fresh chopped garlic for sprinkling over croutons made with day-old French bread, for example, or on the stale tortillas I cut into triangles and toast in the oven (my mother was a Depression-era cook and brought me up to be frugal) because it clings to the pieces and doesn’t drop to the bottom of the bowl or storage bag, as pieces of chopped garlic do. Sometimes I add garlic powder to the gravy at the last minute when I have no time to chop some fresh.
Some beneficial attributes of fresh garlic are lost during the processing of garlic powder, but products vary and we have no way of knowing which are better. Some garlic powders bloom with that familiar garlic aroma when they meet a liquid, and I can only assume that some allicin is being produced. But because garlic is cut into pieces to help along the drying, some of the allicin has to be lost (the same is true of your home-dried garlic; the allicin retained in frozen garlic is a big question mark). And although garlic powder has a definite garlic taste—most of it is about two and a half times as potent as fresh garlic—it doesn’t have the nuanced flavor of fresh garlic, perhaps because processing produces some sulfur compounds that don’t exist in fresh garlic.
Peeled garlic cloves that come in a jar or plastic bag are a recent innovation that look like the best invention since the garlic press, but I’m from Missouri. Can life really be this easy? How can they possibly stay fresh and tasty for however long it takes them to get from there to here without going moldy? What are they steeped in anyway? I bought some to find out. I chopped a clove on my ulu, and it had no smell or taste—well, okay, it had a little smell and taste. Then I chopped a fresh clove of garlic, and the difference came home. The processed cloves have a certain appeal, no doubt, but they’ve been so blanched and acidified to stay fresh and looking good that they’re nearly useless. Their flavor is compromised, as well as their therapeutic benefits.
Let’s face it: all methods of processing garlic so that it fits into jars or packages are going to deplete some of its goodness. Garlic powder or dehydrated garlic (used mainly in health supplements and convenience foods) or peeled or chopped garlic in jars is convenient, but it isn’t the same as fresh garlic. It doesn’t taste the same and doesn’t have the same nutritional or therapeutic value, and we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it does. But if it’s what you need at the time, use it.
Trendy Garlic
Garlic is a hot commodity. Sometimes I fear it’s in danger of becoming so trendy it will turn into tomorrow’s oat bran. I believe the basic garlic bulb will endure for another ten thousand years or more because of its value as a flavoring and its health benefits; it’s the fancy garlic parts that may be passing fancies.
Take garlic scapes, the flower stalks of hardneck varieties of garlic, which are usually removed sometime in June, before their lovely curling shape straightens. A few years ago no one had heard of scapes, but now they’re considered a rare delicacy and sell for high prices—in the summer of 2011 they were priced at a quarter each or five for a dollar at the Friday farmers’ market near my house. Can you imagine green beans selling individually? Five summers ago that same farmer would have thrown those scapes onto the compost heap. But they’ve caught the fancy of food editors everywhere, and every spring newspapers and magazines run the latest methods for cooking them, and websites and blogs rave about the virtues and plate appeal of this latest trendy vegetable. Restaurants love scapes—they’re different, they look good, and they signal that this establishment is on top of the food trends.
Perhaps I’m being churlish, but I think there’s a whiff of the emperor’s new clothes in the scape’s status as a delicacy. It makes an interesting, mildly garlicky dip when chopped finely and combined with sour cream or thick Greek yogurt, and it’s okay but a bit tough chopped into lengths and simmered in olive oil. But scapes don’t taste even a bit like asparagus to me, despite all the blogs I’ve read. I admit that they taste better—and don’t seem as tough—quickly parboiled and then bathed in olive oil and grilled on the barbecue, which adds flavor of its own. But I don’t think garlic-scape pesto compares with the real thing, the one made with basil and lots of garlic and pine nuts, though Lucy says I should add grated lemon rind and some bread crumbs to enhance the flavor and texture. I’ll try that next year.
Like many cooks, I didn’t know what to do with the pointy ends of the scapes—the immature flower bud ends. Were they edible? Should I cut them off? But they are the most attractive part of the scape, so I left them on. Actually, they had more taste than the rest of the stalk, but they were tougher, and the rough, sort of crumbly texture wasn’t exactly pleasant. The next time I cut them off, chopped them up finely, and sprinkled them over the sautéed stems. That was better.
I WILL admit that the popularity of scapes has probably made life better for small growers. It must be a chore to have to cut each one off to allow the bulbs to reach their full size, and selling them to eager customers must be a way to offset some of the labor costs. Typically, the scapes are cut after they’ve coiled downward and have that nice curl customers like but before they straighten and point upward. Holding off until this precise time is thought to allow the bulbs to last longer in storage. But if they were cut before they curled at all, not long after they’d emerged from the underground stem, they would be more tender. Home growers could easily cut scapes at this desirable earlier point because it’s probably not as important for their garlic to have long storage capability. I read somewhere that in Italy it’s common practice among commercial growers to grow some garlic just for its scapes. This could be the next step here, too.
A couple of kinds of green garlic are also becoming popular. Garlic scallions are, like onion scallions, young plants grown for their tender leaves and tiny bulbs, which have a delicate, slightly garlicky taste. They’re a treat, and they can be grown in a pot on your windowsill for winter or in the garden for fall, planted as soon as you harvest your crop in July. Very small cloves are ideal for this purpose, as are large bulbils from a mature scape, planted an inch (2.5 centimeters) or less apart. Use a good potting soil in your indoor pot, and add some well-rotted compost to the outdoor patch. Like scapes, garlic scallions can be grilled or pan-fried, methods that bring out their sweetness, and they’re good in stir-fries or raw in salads. The tops that grow from rounds—the garlic plants that may have gone wild in your garden and haven’t yet developed multicloved bulbs—are also good eaten as garlic scallions.
Garlic scallions are often called green garlic, but true green garlic is actually a little different. It’s more mature than the scallion but not quite grown up yet. It’s not as intensely flavorful as mature garlic and doesn’t have the scallion’s tender and milder attributes, and the bulb may contain a few pristine cloves with the many layers of skin still undeveloped. It’s sold whole, with the bulb and the green tops intact, mainly in farmers’ markets, though some larger greengrocers in the United States sell them.
Garlic greens, as opposed to green garlic, are more mature plants and are yet another way to eat garlic. In tropical countries, garlic is frequently grown just for its tops, since garlic doesn’t form bulbs in hot climates. Garlic greens aren’t often seen in North America, however, if at all. As an experiment you could try growing some to add to stews as you would cabbage or kale. I bet they’d make a fine soup, too. Plant small cloves for the smallest and tenderest greens and harvest before the leaves become tough—but be warned they’re not going to be as tender as garlic scallions. Once they reach a foot (30 centimeters), it’s time to get out the scissors.
The reverse snob in me was prepared to heartily dislike fermented black garlic, the latest and hottest trend. It appeared out of nowhere in a San Francisco gourmet food shop in 2008; then it was used on Top Chef: New York and Iron Chef America. In 2008 it was listed in the American trade publication Nation’s Restaurant News by chef Matthias Merges of Charlie Trotter’s restaurant in Chicago as one of his five food finds of the year. A few months later the Washington Post ran an article about it, followed by the Toronto Globe and Mail. Oh, there was more. The best shops—and only the best ones—started stocking it. I looked for it and couldn’t find it. I realized I shopped at the wrong stores and decided I wouldn’t bother.
Yes, I dug my heels in. But when I finally found it, selling at two bulbs for five dollars, took it home and spread two cloves on crusty rolls under tomato slices, roasted red peppers, fresh mozzarella and prosciutto, I ate my words as well as the sandwich. It was sweet, creamy, fruity, smoky.
“Mmmm, did you put some kind of balsamic sauce on this?” asked Chris. “I like it.”
A few people tried to tell me that fermenting garlic was an ancient method of preserving it and that eating fermented garlic guarantees a long life. I checked it out and it isn’t true, or at least it’s unprovable. Fermented black garlic was invented by Scott Kim in South Korea in 2004 as a health product. I’d love to know how he came up with the idea. He used a forty-day heat-curing process that leaves the bulbs slightly shrunken but with still-white skins. The cloves inside are black, soft, and chewy. Kim says his garlic contains twice as many antioxidants as fresh garlic, as well as S-allyl cysteine, a factor reported to play a role in preventing some types of cancer.
Now that I’ve tried black garlic on sandwiches as well as pasta—mashed into a sauce made with cream and mushrooms—I’m wondering how to use it in other ways. The website (see “Sources”) offers several recipes, including an Asian-style salad with noodles and vegetables and a dish of scallops and chorizo, that sound good.
Black garlic and all the other variations I mention here prove my belief that garlic is being reborn. It’s appearing in grocery stores and on cooking shows in many different guises. It’s gaining respect as more than a folk remedy or a homeopathic cure but as a plant with serious therapeutic value. Yet it remains that odorous, delicious, spellbinding, magical potion I discovered in an Italian restaurant long ago. After all is said and done, the best thing to do with garlic is to eat it, however it is served.
· HOW MUCH GARLIC IS ENOUGH? ·
The World Health Organization’s guidelines recommend one clove a day to promote good health (cloves vary, so that’s 0.07 to 0.18 ounces, or 2 to 5 grams); one clove seems to be the average daily consumption of garlic lovers. Garlic is an antioxidant, which reduces damage to the body caused by free radicals. One raw clove yields about 5 milligrams of allicin, the magical ingredient.
California author and garlic grower Chester Aaron swears by three cloves daily to keep him youthful and healthy, and to judge by his looks and work level, it works for him. He’s eighty-eight and his twenty-seventh book was recently published. Ontario’s Ted Maczka, the same age, still has plenty of vim and vigor; he eats three cloves a day.
Tests based on rats suggested that humans weighing 150 pounds (68 kilograms) could risk liver damage if they consume more than five cloves a day. The rats ate an equivalent amount for twenty-one days with no adverse effects, but there was significant liver deterioration after twenty-eight days.
Eating more than two cloves raw may irritate the stomach and esophagus, but this is hardly news. Eat raw garlic with food, in soup or hummus, or with bread.
Some people react badly to garlic, with severe breath and body odor, heartburn, and digestive upsets. These people may not be able to oxidize the sulfides in garlic into sulfoxides and may be wise to eat only cooked garlic.
· GARLIC IN NAME ONLY ·
Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum) may look like a giant head of garlic, but it’s a member of the leek family and grows to about twice its cousin’s size. Many cooks like the convenience of its big cloves because less peeling is required for the same quantity, but this is a debatable advantage if you’re after real garlic flavor; elephant garlic is milder and more oniony than true garlic. Some cooks prefer its taste, and others scorn it for being weak. Elephant garlic also produces less allicin than garlic. It does have one clear advantage over garlic, however: it has a longer shelf life at room temperature.
· WHEN GARLIC TURNS DEADLY ·
Because garlic grows underground, it can contain spores of the soil-dwelling microorganism Clostridium botulinum, which causes deadly botulism poisoning, and garlic stored in oil offers it the perfect anaerobic home. Never store garlic in oil at room temperature. It’s okay to prepare some garlic-infused oil for that night’s vinaigrette, but throw out any unused portion. It may be fine the next day, but you may forget about it and keep it around for much longer.
The spores are resistant to heat, so cooking the garlic before putting it into the oil likely won’t kill them. However, C. botulinum is sensitive to acid, so garlic cloves soaked in wine, vinegar, or citric acid for twenty-four hours can be stored in oil and kept in the refrigerator safely for about three months. Commercial garlic-and-oil products are prepared with acids under strict regulations to avoid the botulism threat.
· WHEN GARLIC TURNS GREEN ·
You need a background in chemistry to understand why garlic sometimes develops pretty blue or greenish spots. In his book, Eric Block says it’s the result of a complex formation of pigments derived from several amino acids, not contact with the toxic salts of copper or cadmium, as some think, and it’s perfectly safe to eat, though its flavor may be compromised.
In China this chemical process is used to produce green garlic, which is then pickled and served with dumplings at Chinese New Year celebrations.
· GOT GARLIC BREATH? ·
The strong odor caused by garlic starts in the mouth, extends to the gut, and finally is exuded by the lungs and through sweat, and it’s probably going to last thirty hours no matter how often you use mouthwash. The odor is caused by various sulfides produced when garlic is digested.
The classic remedy is to chew parsley, but eating any of several raw fruits and vegetables, such as kiwi, basil, eggplant, mushrooms, and spinach, helps neutralize the effect. Cooked rice, cow’s milk, or eggs can also help. But when it comes down to it, your friends will probably have to wait it out until the garlic leaves your body.
You could try a sauna, though—a good sweat might speed up the process.
RECIPES
Warm-Weather Watermelon Crabmeat-Kissed South Seas Soup
Margee Berry of Trout Lake, Washington, won first prize at the 2010 Gilroy Garlic Festival with this delicious cold soup. Its fresh, fruity sweetness is beautifully balanced with a hit of garlic, the tang of lemongrass and lime juice, and a bit of heat provided by fresh ginger and chilies.
I wasn’t able to get blood oranges when I made this in summer, so I used regular oranges, squeezed fresh. The taste is just a touch sweeter.
Serves 6
5 cups cubed seedless watermelon
1 tbsp mild olive oil
1/4 cup chopped shallots
2 tsp peeled and minced ginger
2 tsp trimmed and minced fresh lemongrass (see Note)
1 tsp minced Thai chili or other hot chili, such as serrano
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 cup freshly squeezed blood orange juice
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp sea salt
CRABMEAT TOPPING
2 cups cooked lump crabmeat
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
3 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 tsp fresh lime juice
4 tbsp grated radish
In a blender, purée the watermelon, then transfer to a large bowl. Set aside.
Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add the shallots, ginger, lemongrass, and chili; sauté 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute more. Transfer to blender along with orange juice, vinegar, fish sauce, and salt; purée until smooth. Stir into watermelon purée, then strain mixture and press it through a fine sieve into another bowl. Discard solids. Chill soup for at least an hour to blend flavors.
CRABMEAT TOPPING: In a medium bowl, toss together drained (if canned) crabmeat, green onion, cilantro, mint, and lime juice.
TO SERVE: Ladle soup into 6 bowls. Mound about 1/3 cup of crabmeat mixture in center of soup and garnish top of crabmeat with grated radish. Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.
NOTE: Trim root end off lemongrass and remove 2 outer leaves. Finely mince with a Microplane zester or a knife. Ginger and garlic can also be minced on the Microplane.
Sopa de Ajo Blanco
Chris and I ate this soup in almost every restaurant we visited while we were in Spain, and each was a little different. It’s bracing, smooth, and spicy but with a sweet edge provided by the grapes, and it’s especially appealing on a hot day. This is my version, and I change the amount of garlic almost every time I make it—the number of cloves depends on how big they are and whether you’re in the mood for mellow or intense.
Serves 6
4 slices white bread without crusts (any kind)
3/4 cup blanched ground almonds
5 or 6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
2 cups water
2 cups chicken stock
salt to taste
about 1/2 lb seedless green or red grapes
Put bread in a bowl and cover with water. Allow to sit a couple of minutes, then drain and squeeze out as much water as you can. Crumble bread and put in food processor with almonds, garlic, oil, vinegar, and water. Process until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and blend in chicken stock. Taste and add salt as needed. Chill well. To serve, put some grapes in the bottom of each bowl and pour soup over.
Cold-Coming-On Soup
“This is just too incredibly simple,” says my friend Pat. “But it’s a great cold remedy,” says her husband, Ian. The general rule is six cloves of garlic for each cup of stock, plus one for the pot.
Serves 2
13 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cups chicken stock (or beef or vegetable, but the legendary chicken fights colds)
2 thick slices crusty bread
grated Gruyère or cheddar cheese
Simmer garlic in stock 15 to 20 minutes, or until tender. Blend with immersion blender.
Put bread into bowls and sprinkle it with the cheese. Pour the soup over, wrap yourself in a blanket, hold the bowl close to your mouth so that you smell the vapors, and spoon it in.
Potage de l’Ail Rose
How can a soup so easy taste so delicious? This soup draws crowds at Lautrec’s Fête de l’Ail Rose the first Friday of every August, where 250 gallons is made to feed the throng. The pink garlic, of course, contributes to the flavor, but it’s not widely available in North America; use a mild Rocambole or other garlic instead.
Serves 4
2 quarts water
10 cloves garlic
5 ounces vermicelli
1 egg, separated
1 tsp mustard, preferably Dijon
olive oil (approximately 1 cup)
salt and pepper to taste
In a large saucepan bring the water to a boil. Crush the garlic and chop the cloves finely or put them through a garlic press. Add to the water all at once. Stir the egg white to a froth and add to water, whisking all the time. Simmer 3 minutes. Break vermicelli into short pieces, add to broth, and simmer another 3 minutes.
To make a mayonnaise, use a food processor, blender, or whisk to beat egg yolk with mustard. Add oil in a slow stream until mixture emulsifies and becomes creamy; you’ll use close to a cup. Slowly add a ladleful of warm stock to mayonnaise, then delicately fold mayonnaise into the soup. Season to taste.
Lentil, Bacon, and Tomato Stew with Forty Cloves of Garlic
“Garlic lovers, this dish is for you,” says Michael Smith, an award-winning cookbook author, Food Network host, and Prince Edward Island’s official food ambassador. “It includes garlic two different ways with two different flavors: pungent and mellow. The lentil stew is earthy, simmered with bacon and roasted garlic; then it’s finished with a sizzling last-second dose of freshly sautéed garlic.” Serve with roasted Yukon Gold potatoes.
Serves 6
40 cloves peeled garlic, 30 cut in half, 10 minced 1/4 cup olive oil 8 slices bacon, sliced crosswise into small strips
1 large onion, chopped finely
1 carrot, diced small
1 cup green or Puy lentils
4 cups chicken broth or water
one 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp vinegar, any kind
a sprinkle or two of salt and
lots of freshly ground pepper
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a small ovenproof dish, toss the garlic cloves with 2 tbsp of the oil. Roast the cloves, stirring once, until they’re golden brown, about 30 minutes. Reserve.
Meanwhile make the stew. Cook bacon until crisp in a large pot over medium-high heat. Transfer to a few folded paper towels to drain. Pour off and discard all but 1 to 2 tbsp of the bacon fat. Add onion and carrot to the pot and sauté, stirring frequently, until they’re tender, about 5 minutes. Add lentils, broth, tomatoes, and thyme and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 40 minutes. When the roasted garlic cloves are done, stir them in.
Just before serving, stir in the bacon and vinegar. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Splash the remaining oil into a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the minced garlic and sauté, stirring occasionally until it begins to brown, 3 or 4 minutes. Pour the sizzling garlic oil with the garlic bits over the surface of the soup.
MICHAEL’S HINT: Roast the garlic cloves slowly to remove their pungency and bring out a deep aromatic flavor. The splash of vinegar adds brightness and enhances the flavors without announcing its sour presence. (From Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen, Penguin, 2011; used with permisssion.)
Perplexed Portobello Steak with Mushroom Purée and Mushroom Crudo
“The portobellos should almost caramelize in the pan juices so they taste rich, like steak,” said Ryan Scott, executive chef at Ryan Scott 2 Go in San Francisco, who won the 2010 Gilroy Garlic Festival’s Celebrity Showdown with this vegetarian dish. “I call it perplexed because they don’t know whether they’re meat or mushrooms.” There’s just enough garlic in the purée and crudo to enhance the earthy taste.
Serves 2
MUSHROOM PURÉE
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 shallots, minced
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, finely diced
1/2 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, trimmed and finely diced
1 tsp minced fresh thyme
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Heat a sauté pan over medium-high heat and add oil and butter. Sauté the shallots until translucent, about 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and thyme and cook over moderate heat until the mushroom liquid evaporates, about 10 minutes. Add stock and vinegar, bring to a boil, and simmer briskly until thick, 7 to 10 minutes. Season to taste. Carefully transfer mixture to a blender and purée until smooth but still thick. Refrigerate until ready to use.
MUSHROOM CRUDO
1/2 cup thinly sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
2 tbsp finely chopped green garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1 tsp sherry vinegar
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
In a bowl combine mushrooms, onion, both kinds of garlic, parsley, and vinegar. Stream in olive oil, stirring well. Season to taste.
PORTOBELLO STEAKS
2 whole portobello mushrooms
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp white wine
1 tsp chopped thyme
1/2 tsp chopped rosemary
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Remove stems from mushrooms (and discard or reserve for another use) and set caps aside. Pour a thin layer of the vegetable broth into a large frying pan, add onion and garlic, and cook 2 minutes over high heat. Add remaining ingredients, except mushroom caps, and turn heat to medium. Add mushrooms, cover, and cook 5 minutes. Gently flip mushrooms over and cook another 5 minutes, adding broth as needed to prevent sticking. Place mushrooms on a large plate and spoon pan juices on top.
TO ASSEMBLE: Place a swirl of Mushroom Purée on each of 2 plates. Lay a Portobello Steak on each plate and top with Mushroom Crudo.
Salsa Verde
“I use this salsa with fish, strewn over a tomato salad, or with grilled chicken,” says Lucy Waverman. “Occasionally I dot it over a pizza, too.”
Makes about 1 cup
1/3 cup coarsely chopped Italian parsley
2 tbsp capers
1 clove garlic
3 anchovy fillets
2 tbsp fresh bread crumbs
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Place parsley, capers, garlic, anchovy fillets, and bread crumbs in food processor. Process until finely chopped. Add lemon juice and olive oil and process until just combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Four Thieves Vinegar
During the seventeenth century doctors and priests carried garlic to protect them from plague, which was spread by fleas. Four thieves released from prison to collect the dead went further: they wore face masks soaked in garlic, vinegar, and herbs, and they didn’t catch the disease and die, as expected. This recipe is an adaptation, without the wormwood and rue of the original.
Makes 4 cups
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 whole nutmeg
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4 whole cloves, crushed
1 sprig each rosemary, sage, mint, and lavender
4 cups red wine vinegar
Put all ingredients in a large jar and stand in a sunny window for a month. Strain and seal. Good in vinaigrettes, soups, or stews; to deglaze a pan after sautéing beef or chicken; or to chase away the bugs that cause plague.
Les Blank’s Lunch
“I favor the whole-wheat walnut bread I buy at Acme Bread in Berkeley,” says the documentary filmmaker, who released the exuberant Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers in 1980. “But any hearty full-grain bread will do.” You could put a slice on top and make this a full sandwich, but it looks more delicious when it’s left open face.
Serves 1
1 organically grown ‘Early Girl’ tomato, thickly sliced
1/2 avocado, sliced
1 thick slice hearty, healthy bread
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
extra-virgin olive oil
Lay the slices of tomato and avocado on the bread and sprinkle the garlic over. Drizzle with as much or as little olive oil as you like.
Whole-Hog Potatoes
John Melone, son of Rudy Melone, one of the founders of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, says he became a surgeon so that he’d be good enough with a knife to cook at the festival. He made these garlicky potatoes on stage and used them as a bed for a side of smoked salmon. “I used unpeeled red potatoes and mashed them with the skins on for the color,” he says. “But I also like to use peeled Yukon Golds—they’re waxy and give a thicker, buttery texture—or russets, which are crumbly and flakier.”
Serves 8
6 to 8 medium potatoes
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1/2 cup grated cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream
chopped green garlic, if you have it
Boil potatoes and garlic together. Drain and put back on warm element to dry off. Add butter and mash well. Add cheese while potatoes are still hot. Stir in cream until consistency is fluffy. Fold in chopped green garlic.
Jacqueline Barthe’s Creamy Garlic Pie
Mme Barthe’s favorite family supper inspired the pie competition at the Fête de l’Ail Rose in Lautrec, France. “We all adore this pie,” says her granddaughter, Pauline Danigo. “We’d eat it any time, all day, not just for supper.”
Serves 6 or 8
pâte brisée for 1-crust pie
2 ounces butter, cold and cubed
2 ounces grated Parmesan cheese
10 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thinly
2 1/2 ounces pine nuts
4 eggs
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp crème fraîche
Roll out pâte brisée and fit into tarte pan with removable bottom. Trim edge flush with top of scalloped edge of pan. With fingers or fork, mix butter and cheese until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over pastry. Top with garlic slices and pine nuts.
Beat eggs and stir in crème fraîche. Pour evenly over base. Bake in 350°F oven about 40 minutes. “My grandmother says to be sure to keep checking as it cooks,” says Pauline. “The filling is thin and could easily burn.”
Roasted Garlic, Blueberry, and Pear Cobblerwith Garlic-Pecan Brickle Cream
Yes, garlic in dessert! This yummy one from Penny Malcolm of Americus, Georgia, didn’t place in the 2010 Gilroy Garlic Festival Great Garlic Cook-Off, but it sure tastes like a winner. The roasted garlic gives it a warm and savory undertone you don’t expect to encounter in a sweet dish.
Serves 6
1/2 cup unsalted butter
two 15-ounce cans sliced pears in natural juice
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
6 cloves roasted garlic, puréed
2 cups self-rising flour
3 cups buttermilk
1 tsp pumpkin-pie spice
1 tsp vanilla
GARLIC-PECAN BRICKLE CREAM
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 clove roasted garlic, puréed
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 450°F. Put butter in a 13 × 9 × 2-inch baking dish and put dish in oven to melt butter and get it hot. While butter is heating, put pears with their juice, blueberries, 1 cup of the sugar, and the 1/2 cup water in a large microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high 3 to 4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the liquid is hot. Add roasted garlic and stir well. In another large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, buttermilk, pumpkin-pie spice, vanilla, and remaining cup of sugar.
Remove the baking dish from the oven. The butter should be sizzling but not browned. Pour the batter evenly over the melted butter without stirring. Spoon the fruit and juices over the batter without stirring. Bake 15 minutes, then lower oven temperature to 350°F. Bake 45 minutes longer, or until the crust has risen to the top and turned golden brown.
Let cobbler cool slightly before serving to allow the juices to thicken.
GARLIC-PECAN BRICKLE CREAM: While cobbler is cooking, prepare the brickle. Cook @ cup sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat 3 to 4 minutes, until sugar has dissolved. If sugar adheres to the side of the pan, brush it down with a pastry brush dipped in a little water. Add pecans and cook, stirring often, to 300°F on a candy thermometer. Remove pan from heat and add remaining ingredients except for the whipping cream and # cup sugar; quickly pour mixture onto a piece of oiled parchment paper and allow it to cool completely. When it’s cool, chop into small pieces.
Whip the cream until frothy. Add sugar and whip until it forms stiff peaks. Fold in brickle, reserving a few pieces for garnish.
Serve cobbler warm, topped with the whipped cream mixture and garnished with a few pieces of brickle.