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Home > Sangre Celestial > Garlic: How to use it in soup, sauces, salad dressings
Podcast: Sangre Celestial
Episode:

Garlic: How to use it in soup, sauces, salad dressings
Category: Arts
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2025-08-06 19:00:00
Description: Garlic is fundamental in my cooking. It’s not that I use a lot in each dish, but in many dishes I make, it is there, bringing its unique aroma, pungency, heat, and sometimes mellow nuttiness. One thing I learned in my chef days was how versatile the herb is, depending on how it’s prepared. Drop a peeled whole clove into a stew, and it will add a mellow perfume to the dish. Push it though a garlic press or grate it into arrabiata sauce, and the pungency and heat is a punch to the palate. Basically, the more cell wall destruction there is, the stronger the aroma and flavor. Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic show off garlic’s mellow properties. Credit: Shutterstock. The most mild prep would be unpeeled whole cloves, then peeled cloves used in a stew or alongside a roast chicken or beef roast. A friend who is sensitive to garlic told me that when she uses it in a vinaigrette, she smashes it lightly with the side of a knife, then sticks a fork in the bruised clove, and uses it to stir the dressing ingredients together. The most famous dish using whole garlic cloves is James Beard’s Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic . It’s said that Beard made it for Julia Child one night for dinner, and then she popularized it. There are many recipe variations for the dish. I make this one from Leite’s Culinaria more than the original. The dish shows off how garlic transforms from pungent to mellow with long cooking. Chopped garlic is ready for cooking. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. Next up in pungency is a whole head of garlic cut in half and tucked into a braise or roasted. Those soft cloves are a study in nutty sweetness when you push them out of their papery homes. Another way to get cloves that are mellow and soft is to confit them in olive oil, or roast them in the oven in an open-face hobo pack . Most people confit garlic slowly in the oven or below a simmer on top of the stove. So mine doesn’t really qualify as a confit. I simply put a quantity of whole peeled garlic cloves in a small pot and barely cover them with olive oil. I start them cooking over medium-high heat until the oil is bubbling, then I turn the heat down and watch. When they are dotted with golden brown spots, take them off the heat and wait. Lovely to eat on toasted bread, accompanying whatever else you’re eating. I use them on this simple goat cheese presentation . For more aroma and some actual pungency, you can peel the garlic without smashing it so the cell walls remain intact, but then slice, chop, or mince it. The smaller the pieces, the stronger the flavor. I use sliced garlic for the ultimate in simplicity — the recipe Spaghetti Aglio e Olio . Instead of sauteeing the sliced garlic in a film of oil, I choose to stew it in a bit more oil. I watch the slices closely, making sure they become a bit golden at the edges but not all the way through. I add pepperoncini, aka chili flakes, to the oil as it comes off the heat, then a healthy glug of fresh lemon juice. To finish — a blizzard of chopped parsley and that’s it. Chopped or minced garlic goes in tomato sauces, stir-fries, and ground meat dishes. Anywhere you need to amp up flavor. I always start by sauteing it, adding the other ingredients when the garlic goes opaque and gives off its characteristic aroma. Using a garlic press gives you the most pungent results, along with garlic’s heat. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. For soups and stews, I often smash garlic with the side of a chef’s knife, slip the peel off, and throw it into the dish. I get more pungency that way. But the ultimate way for the strongest garlicky flavor along with actual heat is to push the cloves through a garlic press or grate them on a microplane. The garlic press gets a bad rap, but I grew up using one every day for my mom’s Garlicky-Parmesan Salad Dressing recipe, which ended up on the Angeli menu under the name Insalata Forte. Now I’m apt to use a microplane, but I still love my 1950s press, even though it’s a pain to clean. The other dish that needs pure garlic heat and aroma is arrabiata sauce. I was taught by my mentor in Rome to push the garlic through the press directly into the sauce with no sauteing first. In this way, the garlic flavor is pungent and clear. It’s so delicious.
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