The green top portion of the garlic plant is edible, too, particularly when young and mild. But when we talk about garlic we're usually talking about the part that grows underground in a tightly formed head made up of about a dozen or more cloves, each wrapped in a thin papery skin. A member of the lily family (along with leeks, chives, onions and shallots) garlic is the strongest-flavored, most assertive member of the group.
When shopping for garlic:
- Look for firm dry heads of garlic.
- Store them whole and unbroken in a cool, dry, dark location. They'll stay for about two months.
- To peel garlic, place the clove under the flat side of a chef's knife and gently press down with the ball of your hand, lightly crushing the clove. The skin will split, allowing you to pull it off the clove more easily.
Making the Odorous Less Onerous
Shakespeare cautioned, “Eat no onions or garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.” No doubt eating garlic can have an onerously odorous effect upon the breath.
However, cooking your garlic can ameliorate the stinky sting somewhat. Cooking mellows garlic's hot flavor, transforming it into something savory, earthy and nutty. Once cooked, garlic infuses deep flavor to soups and sauces and pairs wonderfully with tomatoes, parsley, onions and ginger. The natural sugars in garlic cause it to brown nicely in butter or olive oil.
You'll notice that minced garlic smells much stronger than whole uncrushed cloves. In fact, it's only when garlic cloves are cut into or crushed, and the cellular walls breached, that an odor-causing reaction takes place, as enzymes mix with volatile sulfur-containing compounds. These sulfur compounds pass undigested into the blood stream; they then enter and linger in our lung tissue, where they make their menacing mark upon the breath. Eating parsley is commonly believed to fight off garlic breath, but it offers only temporary relief. Time is the only true cure.
Garlic: A Love-Hate Relationship
Like generations before us, we seem to have a love-hate relationship with garlic.
For centuries garlic has been the bogeyman of ingredients. The upper classes thumbed their noses at its strong smell and considered it food fit only for laborers. Consequently, garlic was assigned strength- and endurance-building attributes. Egyptian slaves built the pyramids on a heavily garlic-fortified diet.
Some cultures have embraced garlic more fully than others. Southern European cooking uses it with a flourish, while in northern Europe, it is used only sparingly and is cooked more thoroughly to take the sting off its hot flavor.
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