All About Cooking with Garlic

Okay, I get it. You don't like garlic. Okay, I don't really get it. How do you not like garlic?!?! Well, you do you. No judgment. But hate it or love it, any cook worth their fleur de sel has got to know how to use garlic.

Garlic is part of the Allium genus like onions and leeks. It is pungent and sulfury when raw and bitter when burnt. But cooked properly, it turns sweet and nutty.

The way you cut and cook garlic makes a big difference in its flavor. But before worrying about that, we need to start with a good head of garlic.

How to Buy Good Garlic

Garlic is a fantastic pantry ingredient. It can last for months. But if you want it to last that long, you’ve got to buy it fresh. So how do you know if they’re the one? 💍 Besides introducing them to your best friend, here are a few tips:

• Look for garlic heads where the cloves are tightly held together. They shouldn’t be easy to remove.
• The papery skins should be attached tightly.
• The head should feel dense and heavy for its weight. Hollow garlic is no bueno.
• It shouldn’t look dehydrated. As garlic ages, it dries out.
• Avoid sprouts! No, not the grocery store. If your garlic sprouts when it’s at home, no big deal. Just cut them out. But you don’t want to buy garlic with green sprouts popping out of cloves.

How You Prep Garlic Changes Its Flavor

Garlic has bitter flavor molecules called allicin. Allicin is created by an enzyme called alliinase which is released when you break the garlic’s cell walls—usually by chopping, cutting, or crushing the cloves. Also, like onions, garlic’s bitterness and “bad breath tendencies” are effective at (1) keeping pests away, (2) avoiding unwelcome advances at the bar, and (3) social distancing. 😉

Here’s the actionable bit. The more cell walls you break, the more pungent the garlic flavor. 🔪

• Cooking whole garlic cloves creates a beautifully subtle and sweet garlic flavor because you aren’t breaking any cell wells. It’s perfect for folks that aren’t big garlic fans.
• Minced or grated garlic (which you can do with a microplane) breaks a ton of cell walls. And therefore has the most pungent and bitter garlic flavors.
• Sliced garlic is the Goldilocks. You’re breaking a few cell walls by slicing the clove, but it’s less harsh.

So how do you decide if you want to slice, mince, or keep it whole? Start by deciding what kind of flavor you want and then the type of texture. For example, garlic is great in “raw” sauces like a vinaigrette or a yogurt sauce. So the question then is do you want to bite into the garlic when you eat it? Mincing garlic makes it so you’ll have a little bit of texture. However, grating it will make your garlic disappear into the final dish which is great for keeping your yogurt sauce smooth. On the other hand, slicing garlic for a soup makes it so there are nice bits of garlic that you get to slurp up, adding delightful texture. 🥄

Always Burn Your Garlic?

It happens to the best of us. Here are a couple of things to try:

• Don’t add your garlic at the same time as your onions: It’s a pretty common mistake that I used to make myself. Onions and garlic cook differently. Wait to add your garlic to the pan until your onions are almost done.
• Use sliced garlic instead: Minced garlic burns notoriously quickly. The larger slices won’t burn as easily.
• Start with a cold pan: When cooking garlic on its own, add it to a cold pan as the oil or butter begins to heat up. It will make sure the garlic cooks slowly and evenly. Plus it will subtly infuse that fat with garlicky goodness!

New Ways to Cook Garlic

• Try roasting whole garlic cloves with the skin on: Throw your cloves on a sheet pan in a 350℉ (175℃) oven—skin on and all—and let them cook until the skin starts to brown and the cloves soften. After they cool, remove the skins and mince or slice your cooked garlic before adding it to a dish.
• Place a whole head of garlic in a soup or stew with the top third of the head cut off: The cloves will get sweet and jammy as they cook. When your dish is almost done, use kitchen tongs to squeeze the head. The cloves will easily come out of the skin and drop into your soup or stew. Then they’ll literally melt into the soup as it sits. Here’s a quick video if you’re curious.
• Cook whole garlic cloves in oil and then remove them: You can cook whole cloves directly in a healthy amount of oil until the cloves are lightly brown all over. This infuses the oil with a subtle garlic flavor. It’s the perfect way to start your pasta sauce! 🍝 Once browned, you can then remove the cloves. Save them for future use or add them back in later for even more garlic flavor. (This also helps make sure you don’t burn your garlic!)

Where I learned this: Mostly recipes and cooking classes from the folks over at Milk Street.