I've never taken a bite of something and thought "hmmm this has too much garlic" soooooooo...
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I don’t like some kind of processed garlic seasonings and flavors. Sometimes I swear it makes me feel crappy too.
But when I’m chucking fresh cloves into my garlic press to make some egg fried rice from scratch? Load it up!!
Many years ago I found a pasta recipe called "death by garlic". It's the only time I've cooked something and though, "ok, this is a good amount of garlic!".
IMO, 1 clove = the whole bulb.
I used to think that's what it literally meant and after being corrected, I hated everything I used to like because it didn't have enough garlic. So I just went back to my old ways.
Am entire whole ass garlic? That's the bulb right? The whole thing? My hats off to you. You don't get sick often huh?
You're probably not preparing your garlic correctly for the recipe. It's not always about volume.
Raw is great, but it still requires some prep. Grated raw and mixed with olive oil, with some black pepper, and salt, makes a wonderful dip/spread on toasted bread.
I like raw garlic in a number of dishes; gives a spicy sensation. Especially if Mediterranean style (as it was taught to me anyway).
I used to host a d&d game, and since I love to cook, would normally make a meal beforehand for everyone to enjoy before we play. One week we made flatbread, homemade hummus, toom, and a bunch of other things in a similar vein.
Only one friend ate the toom with me. Everyone left around 10pm. At 11pm he and his fiance were knocking on our door. She said he had to sleep over tonight because the garlic stink was just too much. Lmao.
We stayed up most of the night eating more garlic. Lmao
Wait, you don't?
It's a bit better roasted. Or at least sauteed, but I'll sometimes eat a smaller clove raw for some spice in life.
Oh good, you bought pre-peeled garlic that came in a plastic container rather than peeling the natural container it comes in...
I mean...this is a completely unstandable thing to do if you need a large amount of whole garlic. Despite many "tricks" that people use, peeling a large amount of garlic still takes a long time.
Oddly enough, the more garlic you have to peel the easier the standard method of shaking it between two bowls works.
Another method I like is cracking the skins with a knife and then rubbing them between my hands. But this sometimes cuts my palms so it might not be for everyone.
I've used that method many times, and while it certainly reduces the time it takes to peel in bulk, I've never found that it fully removed the peels from the majority of cloves, which means they still need individual attention to complete the job. Or put another way...it's still a pain in the ass.
Yup, it's a pain so we buy the peeled garlic in bulk pretty often and freeze it. We use a lot of garlic...
But the best way imo is:
- Cut the ends off (the bottom of the bulb if doing in bulk)
- Crush it under a knife halfway
- Pinch the opposite end (top of bulb) and the skin should come off
I can do a whole bulb in a minute or so, faster than it takes to chop (then again, i'm slow at chopping). For soups, it doesn't need to be chopped, just toss it in.
Probably because they're all bumping into each other. If you don't have many you can put them in a cocktail shaker or a plastic water bottle and shake them it works pretty well, but anything plastic will absorb the garlic smell of course!
A silicon garlic peeler is my favorite way - it can take a minute to figure out the right pressure but this does them very quickly and removes all the skin. This is the one I have:
It’s very thin silicon so you can just throw it in any drawer.
I worry that modern recipe writers are on to us garlic doublers and are halving the amount of garlic their recipes call for. I always quadruple to be safe.