I’m not sure about you but in my house, we can’t eat without garlic.
I grew up eating it for breakfast with my pa’ amb tomàquet, which is a delicious piece of toasted bread rubbed with garlic, fresh grated tomatoes and a splash of extra virgin olive oil.
For lunch, it’s a fundamental ingredient in our ‘sofritos’, the famous veggie base which we start most of our dishes with. For an afternoon snack with sandwiches and tapas with aioli, or for dinner recipes like tomato salads, stews, braises or soups.
Literally, we eat garlic the whole time in Spain!! It’s delicious.
Garlic comes from an edible vegetable with a bulb, stem, leaves and flower related to the family of onions.
Research shows that just one or two cloves per day provide substantial health benefits, including reduced cholesterol, lower blood pressure, and is a great as treatment for respiratory infections.
Why can garlic have such a bad reputation sometimes for some people?
Well, I guess there are a few factors for that. But the main one, in my opinion, is because some people do not treat it properly! It’s as simple as that.
Get a pencil and a piece of paper and write this easy step: always add your chopped garlic on a frypan with olive oil when it’s COLD.
Yep, that’s right, before you turn the stove on. Then, turn the stove on and let the olive oil and garlic cook together gently. Trust me, that step will prevent you from burning it, and will help you develop the full potential and delicious flavour of your cloves!
You may have probably heard that ‘garlic mayo’ is given to Provencal origins.
Which basically is the southeast of France and northeast of Spain, where aioli was invented.
In Catalan aioli literally means ‘garlic and oil’. However it is not the only place with this combination of flavours in that part of the world.
The cool thing is that if you check another neighboring country in the Mediterranean sea, like Lebanon, then you realise that their famous garlic sauce called Toum is just exactly a combination of garlic and oil as well. Amazing right?
They also traditionally use just a mortar and pestle and add the oil little by little, becoming a slow process of sauce making, made with a lot of love!! The result is clearly outstanding.
For gastronomic enthusiasts like me, I’d like to point out that the funny thing is I don’t know where or when exactly the egg was added in this recipe as a way to combine and stabilise the sauce.
However the addition of the egg has made the life of many modern chefs better and of course it has become one of the most important recipes in the culinary world.
Chef’s tip: Always keep your garlic out of the fridge. It will be nice and handy!
Ingredients:
– 1 whole egg
– 1 garlic clove
– 1 pinch salt flakes
– 250 ml vegetable oil
Method:
1. Peel garlic clove
2. Add whole egg, garlic and pinch of salt in a blender container.
3. Turn the hand-blender on.
4. Blend all the ingredients well
5. Start adding a very thing stream of oil, while the blender starts combining all together.
6. Don’t be in a hurry! It is a matter of time. Keep adding the oil until desire consistency. 7. Taste and adjust seasoning if it was necessary
Note: for those ones who like to experiment: add in step 2 a little bit of tandoori paste, or squid ink, sriracha sauce, any fresh herbs, etc.. you’ll get another level of garlic emulsion sauce (a bit different and non traditional but delicious anyway!).
Important: remember this recipe is a ‘cold emulsion’, that’s how it is called in professional cooking. Please keep it always in the fridge until you are going to use it! It will last in the fridge for onn-day maximum.