Is there no such thing as too much garlic? Now I know about 75% of you have probably said "No, you can alway add more." already based on what I hear in the classroom, but I want us to look at the questions from the standpoint of the dish and how we utilize garlic. Depending on how we use and prepare the garlic we get differing strengths of flavor.
So what makes garlic "garlicy"? We can thank the compound allicin. Allicin is made up of alliin (an amino acid) and alliinase (an enzime) and the more we process, or work with the garlic it releases more of these 2 things together. So if we take this information we can decide how we want to prepare our garlic when we prep up our recipes. Maybe you want a lighter flavor, so you would slice garlic chips to add into the dish. On the flip side you can take that same dish and mince the garlic to a paste and add it in which will give you that stronger flavor.
If it were me I would choose how to use my garlic based on a few things. First, what does my fridge or dry storage look like? Do I have a lot of garlic to use up or am I starting to run low. Maybe pay day is a little farther away and I want to stretch my flavors throughout the week. Maybe I have a whole bag of peeled garlic and I know if I don't use it this week it will go bad. Do I have to secretly make sure my guest isn't a vampire or I have my garlic obsessed friends over and I need to load the dish with garlic? All of these factors can lead to deciding if I should slice, dice, mince, or paste my garlic for a dish.
So now that we know we can make a dish, that uses the same numbere of cloves, taste different using techniques you can apply this to your home cooking. It is up to you to use your new garlic powers for good and not evil.
As always, I hope this helps you on your own personal culinary journey of deepeing your knowlegde and skills at home. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.
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