This is also partially due to more cells in the garlic being crushed and the intracellular compounds reacting with things on the outside.
Vegetables are trying to kill us so we won’t eat them
It’s also important to note that allicin breaks down with time, acid, or the application of heat.
Another note here, it takes time for the allicin to form. So your maximum flavor is about 10-15 minutes after crushing the garlic. After that, you start losing flavor.
That said, allicin is only one of many flavors. And different preparations can highlight those flavors. A rich tomato sauce that has simmered for hours is elevated with garlic, but fresh garlic is a waste. Use jarred or even powdered (soaked in room temp water for a few minutes first) and it will taste much the same.
Proof! Except the results have almost nothing to do with surface area and everything with chemical reactions and compositions. :D
I am not really sure if it is due to surface area directly, but more with the number of garlic cells being crushed, causing the potent component to be released in defense.
You also need to cook 2,3 in this state, or you just crush all the cells in your mouth and end up with 4.
A friend of mine (from Palestine) taught me another trick with garlic: mince the garlic, then generously sprinkle it with coriander powder and mash it all together with a fork. Add to a dish (like a sauce or a stew) when it’s already mostly cooked, just at the end. It has a pretty intense flavor and is really yummy.
This reminds me of the time we went to SanFran for a conference and 30 of us all went to the Stinking Rose (a notorious garlic overload restaurant) for dinner then all took the same red eye back home.
The smell on that plane was causing complaints from passengers.
Misread this as you all went back home with pinkeye from the restaurant
Did they know it was you? Or did you sheepingly pretend to also be annoyed at the smell
They didn’t know who exactly, but it was literally 30 out of 150 so VERY INTENSE and pervasive. You can’t localize it.
“Oh god, honey, you would not believe. The plane smelled like 30 people farted all at once!”
Obviously this is proof that garlic can sense your aggression and react with anger.
L’chatelier principle
Fuck zodiac signs, what type of garlic are you?
All of them
Yes
3! This is my default garlic.
3! = 3*2*1 = 6
Dear god, avert me from the vicinity. Pee-ew!
This is why it’s smart to use a blend. People ask why I have both powedered and granualted garlic and it’s because the size of the grain affects the taste and to get the best taste, it’s a good idea to use all 3: Fresh garlic cut the way you want, powder and granulated. It’s so much more robust than just using only 1.
It’s also why powdered sugar is a better topping (like for strawberries) than granulated sugar.
I have to agree and think this is really underappreciated. People hypercorrected from “powdered garlic is a terrible substitute for fresh garlic” to “you should only ever use fresh garlic”. They taste different and sometimes you will benefit from using powdered or granulated.
Garlic salt sprinkled on the crust of my pizzas before baking makes up for the fact that I can’t bake for shit.
Agreed! They taste different and have different applications. Minced fresh garlic is not for a dry rub, and I’m not gonna confit garlic powder (or should I? Lolol)
So how do you eat 1️⃣? Just swallow it whole?
Oh, it’s amazing. Get a head of garlic and rub off all the exterior papery stuff (but not the skin of the individual cloves. Some people also cut the pointy tips off. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast until soft. Get some nice bread, warm bread. Pull off a clove, hold it by the bottom and squeeze it like toothpaste onto a slice of bread. Enjoy the most wonderful garlic bread variant.
You can also make black garlic, and it becomes fairly sweet
Huh, interesting, hadn’t seen that.
👃
No joke - my wife and I were eating so much of it for a while that you could smell it on our sweat.
Also, what they say is true: we got zero mosquito bites during that time.
The legends are true then, the blood-sucking vampires were skeeters all along!
I think I hate vampires less than mosquitos
I would argue that the surface area of paste is less than the surface area of minced.
It’s about the surface of the tiny garlic particles in the paste, not the surface of the blob of paste
Only if you think of the mound of paste as the thing you’re measuring. If you’re measuring pieces of garlic obviously it’s much higher.
Alternatively, just spread the paste really thin.
