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May 18, 2023

Garlic Guide

King Tut ate garlic. The Roman legions ate garlic. The Chinese have been growing

King Tut ate garlic. The Roman legions ate garlic. The Chinese have been growing garlic for 4,000 years. But it took a while for Americans to get on board with the stinking rose, as it wasn't that long ago that fresh garlic was seldom used at home or served in restaurants. Now, however, it's everywhere, but in some ways it's still a mystery.

Why, for example, is there only one kind of garlic in most grocery stores? You can get all different kinds of tomatoes and all different kinds of onions, but garlic comes only in white bulbs.

And, of course, why does it make your breath capable of peeling paint off your car?

To answer the last question first, the odor arises from compounds containing sulfur, but the more you cook garlic, the less noticeable those compounds become. There's more to the chemistry than that, and it does make a difference how the garlic is prepped before it's added to the dish, but in general the shorter the cooking time, the deadlier your breath.

Regardless, "the smell is the best smell ever," says Mattia Marcelli, the executive chef of Montesacro in Walnut Creek. There's nothing like the aroma of garlic wafting from the kitchen.

But that aroma is always the same, because the garlic we buy is always the same, unlike many other ingredients in common recipes. The reason? Garlic is cloned, grown from the very cloves you cook with, and the dominance of a few American and Chinese garlic producers limits the available options.

Marcelli, for example, gets his garlic from Christopher Ranch in Gilroy, which has been growing commercial garlic since 1956. The Chinese version is cheaper, but it has a higher water content and doesn't pack the punch of the California variant, notes Ken Christopher, the executive vice president of Christopher Ranch.

"We can beat them on quality and taste," he says.

And since garlic has become ubiquitous—"it's in about everything Americans eat," Christopher says—quality is important. For your own kitchen, Christopher recommends buying "medium or smaller bulbs, because the cloves are bigger and you don't have to spend as much time peeling them."

He also warns that any clove that has sprouted will taste more bitter than an ungerminated one.

With the right garlic, though, even the most unlikely recipe can be elevated into something scrumptious.

What is the best way to use garlic? Should you use whole cloves? Chop it up? Use one of those garlic handpresses to get as much juice as possible? "Each recipe is different," says Marcelli. Some of Montesacro's dishes use a garlic confit (cloves that have been baked in oil), while others call for whole cloves. In the restaurant's cavolo nero (kale) salad, for example, Marcelli blends whole raw cloves with anchovies, vinegar, and oil for a potent dressing. In the calamari in purgatorio, Marcelli adds a whole clove to an overnight marinade, and then cooks the squid in a cast-iron skillet with EVOO, chopped Calabrian chili, and another whole clove. For the carciofi alla Romana, he uses minced garlic, along with mint, parsley, and salt, as a spice mix to coat the artichokes before panfrying them in olive oil and steaming them with white wine.

Clean the calamari and marinate with smoked paprika, rosemary, 1 garlic clove, and olive oil. The mix should marinate overnight.

In a small cast-iron skillet, cook the extra virgin olive oil, 1 garlic clove, and the chopped Calabrian chili for 1 minute. Add the calamari and salt to taste, then cook on high for about 5 minutes until the calamari is tender (not chewy). Serve in the skillet with the aromatic bread crumbs on top.

Prepare the dressing by putting the anchovies, garlic, white wine vinegar, and water into a blender. Slowly add the olive oil until the dressing is creamy.

Clean and prepare the kale, add the croutons, and top with a shaved hard-boiled egg yolk.

Begin by filling a large container with water and squeezing in the lemon. This will prevent the artichokes from oxidizing.

Combine the mint, parsley, garlic, and salt in a small bowl. Clean and prepare the artichokes: Remove the external leaves, trim the stems and the top parts, and clean the artichokes’ centers by removing the hairy chokes.

Put all the artichokes in the lemon water until you begin coating them with the spice mix. Coat the exterior of the artichokes, and try to slip some of the mixture between the leaves.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan, and place the artichokes with their heads down. After 5 minutes, add the white wine, let it evaporate, and then add enough water so that the heads of the artichokes are covered. Cover and cook over low to medium heat for 30 or 40 minutes or until the centers of the artichokes are tender. Serve with white wine.