Useful Information About Garlic

Garlic is one of the most used ingredients in the food, making the dish taste better, tastier, and more profound. It is a versatile and super delicious ingredient with lots of benefits. 

Garlic is one of the most famous and popular ingredients that all people worldwide know and use it. I like garlic in anyways: fresh, cooked, powder, or baked. Garlic adds that ideal and perfect pungines and flavour to any dish. For example, a simple tomato salad with a fresh clove of garlic seems cheap and not fancy, but perfect and tasty. I know that it may sound odd, but some fresh crushed garlic added to some baked peppers, zucchini, or other veggies will deepen the flavour and aroma. 

Okay, but today I would like to talk about the strength of garlic’s flavour. It was a discovery for me as well to find out that the deep garlic flavour depends on how you cut it. 

Something new for you too?

Well, for today, I want to make a garlic presentation about the strength it has depending on how you cut it. 

We use garlic, fresh or powder, in our kitchen every day and in many dishes. There are a lot of garlic recipes, many I have still cooked, that have an unbelievable aroma. Baking bread or pizza at home with a lot of garlic makes me crazy as I simply adore the smell it emanates.

However, let’s return to our garlic intense flavour. We all know that garlic’s flavour comes from an organosulfur compound known as allicin. When we break, crush a clove garlic’s wall, the more allicin it produces, or either we cut, slice, chop or crush it.

The spicy taste of garlic depends on how you cut it. So if you want to increase or, on the contrary, to decrease the garlic’s flavour, then you should know the following rules: 

Mild Garlic Taste

Mildest of all is the whole unpeeled clove of garlic used in dishes. It grants a mellow sweetness and offers a mild strength and flavour. So garlic gets softer and smoother as it cooks and loses its harshness and. Cooking whole cloves of garlic in oil, par example, offers a nutty, lightly sweet garlic flavour to the dish. 

You can check our recent Octopus recipe, where whole cloves of garlic are used just to add a touch of flavour and sharpness. 

Moderate Garlic Taste

Minced garlic cloves will up the taste and the intense flavour; however, they will still remain moderate and less pungent. For example, Buttered Dill Potatoes with minced cloves of garlic will have a mild taste and aroma. You can adjust the flavour using any garlic (chopped, minced, or wholes) for this recipe, but I like to feel the dill in potatoes next to the garlic taste. 

Strong Garlic Taste

My comfort zone. I adore garlic and try to use it everywhere I can. Strong garlic aroma is my weakness as I love how it smells and the way the dish tastes. 

A strong garlic aroma comes from the chopped garlic. Minced or chopped, it depends on how powerful garlic flavour you want to have in your dishes. For example, in our Pork Steak Bites recipe, you can feel a deep garlic aroma as garlic with pork is such a nice duo. The more you cut up the garlic, the more allicin it makes and thus produces a stronger garlic flavour with a sharp taste. This is one of the flavours my family love so much. 

Shrimp Asparagus Skillet with a lot of garlic is simply out of this world recipe where garlic plays one of the most important roles, as both shrimp and asparagus have a mild/nutty flavour. Such dishes need more minced or chopped garlic to accentuate the taste. 

Very Sharp Garlic Taste

The aroma and taste are at a high scale, as pressing, chopping super fine offers the sharpest taste. If you want a very sharp garlic taste, use a grater or a sharp knife to drag or grate the garlic. This process breaks down all garlic cells, thus creating an intense/harsh garlic taste. This technique is used to make different sauces like Chimichurri, aioli, pesto, and others.

In different seafood recipes, I try to use a lot of garlic. Seafood with garlic synchronises excellent and makes some bursting delicious aromas. 

As I have already mentioned, I like to use garlic in as many recipes as possible because garlic-like salt and pepper is a vital ingredient in many dishes.