5 Garlic Techniques That Will Up Your Game
In this edition of Epicurious 101, professional chef Lish Steiling demonstrates five ways garlic can seriously elevate your cooking. From delicious garlic butter to crispy garlic chips, these transformative methods add professional flare to any dish.
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00:00I'm Liv Styling. I'm a professional chef.
00:02And today, I'm going to show you five ways to transform garlic.
00:07We're talking garlic chips, roasted garlic, confit garlic,
00:11garlic cream, and garlic butter.
00:14This is Transforming Garlic 101.
00:17♪♪
00:20Garlic chips are basically thinly sliced cloves of garlic
00:24that you fry in a little bit of olive oil or avocado oil,
00:27season it with a little bit of salt,
00:29and what you end up with is kind of like garlic candy.
00:32Let's say you're at a grocery store.
00:34What exactly are you looking for in a good bulb of garlic?
00:37You want it to be firm and tight.
00:40You don't want it to be kind of soft, no dented marks.
00:43Pre-peeled garlic.
00:45Just don't do it.
00:47It takes 5 to 10 seconds to peel a clove of garlic,
00:50and it makes a world of difference in a dish.
00:53You avoid any acrid flavor, you avoid any sourness,
00:56you avoid a stronger flavor.
00:58Fresh is your friend.
01:00First things first, we get our pan warming.
01:02Peel the head of garlic here.
01:04Pulling off a couple of these beautiful cloves here.
01:07For the slicing, I'm not actually smashing it.
01:10I'm just giving it a little knock to loosen the skins.
01:13And then I'm cutting off the root end
01:16so that the skin comes off nice and easy.
01:19We're just going to slice them thin.
01:21You can do this with a knife or you can do it with a mandolin.
01:24As we're slicing the garlic, it's bringing out the oils,
01:27so you're definitely going to smell that intense garlic smell.
01:30But because we're leaving it in slices,
01:32this will give us a nice mild flavor
01:35when we fry them in a little bit of oil.
01:37If you cut it too thick, it might not crisp up as much,
01:40or it might just take a little bit longer to cook.
01:42Pan has been heating up.
01:44I'm using olive oil here because I like the flavor of it.
01:47You can absolutely use an avocado oil, a vegetable oil,
01:50any kind of neutral oil.
01:52I'm putting about maybe a half an inch of oil in the pan,
01:55just enough to coat and give you a little girth at the bottom.
01:58The way that you can tell if it's hot is, first of all,
02:01it should move freely in the pan.
02:03You can kind of see ripples where it dances.
02:05You can test it, though, by adding one little chip in there.
02:08And you can see it fries up.
02:10We'll probably do it just a couple at a time.
02:12You can lower them in with a spoon
02:14if you don't feel comfortable dropping them in with your fingers.
02:17Keep them moving.
02:19If it seems to be bubbling too much, turn down the heat.
02:22If it doesn't seem to be bubbling enough, turn it up.
02:25These chips could burn relatively easily,
02:27and they go from sweet to bitter pretty quickly.
02:30Once they start browning on the edges,
02:32that's when you really have to pay attention,
02:34because that's when it can go from brown to bad very quickly.
02:37So as soon as they have that whisper of golden brown,
02:40we start to spoon them out here.
02:42This is what you're looking for.
02:44You're looking for this even brown throughout, crispy edges.
02:47You can kind of see through it.
02:49It's really pretty.
02:51And...
02:53Garlic candy.
02:55So this one is slightly underdone.
02:57It would still be very enjoyable, but it's not going to be as crispy.
03:00That's your golden brown.
03:02The difference is slight, but it's there.
03:04This one is crispy all the way through.
03:06This one still has just a whisper of softness in it.
03:09This guy is too far.
03:11It's going to be crispy,
03:13but it's going to leave you with a kind of tannic coating on your tongue.
03:16So pull it out early versus leaving it in too long.
03:20Crispy garlic chips are a great addition to salad,
03:24to pasta, to almost anything.
03:26It adds a little bit of crunch.
03:28It's a little earthy sweetness.
03:30Garlic chips are relatively simple to prepare.
03:32It just takes a little time, patience,
03:35and don't forget, awareness.
03:40Roasted garlic is one of the easiest ways to transform garlic.
03:43So we have our whole head of garlic.
03:45We're going to cut off the top third of the head here.
03:48And this surface area is going to brown up nicely.
03:51Everything else is going to kind of steam and roast in its skin
03:55and get super soft and delicious.
03:57I have a little bit of aluminum foil here.
04:00Plop this head of garlic on the foil.
04:02Give it a good amount of olive oil.
04:04Season it with a good amount of salt.
04:07Seal it up like your would you jelly sandwich.
04:10Pop it in a 400 degree oven for about 50 minutes
04:13until it's super soft and sexy.
04:16It's been about 50 minutes.
04:19Ooh, she looks pretty soft.
04:22Yes, and look.
04:24Oh, the garlic magic that happens.
04:28You can see how easily it comes out of there.
04:31Roasted garlic is another versatile way of preparing garlic
04:34that transforms any dish.
04:36The softness of roasted garlic and the sweet umami
04:39meld so easily into sauces, soups, stews, mayonnaise,
04:44or even just smeared on toast to keep you healthy all winter long.
04:51The method of confiting anything is basically cooking something in fat
04:55and cooking it slowly.
04:57This method, we're going to carefully peel an entire head of garlic.
05:02Taking off the outer papers here,
05:04just pull apart all these,
05:06what will become our little jewels of confit garlic.
05:10It's similar in flavor to roasting,
05:13but you're going to get a little bit more sweetness out of it
05:16because you're kind of caramelizing the entire clove of garlic,
05:19like all the way around.
05:21Confit was originally used to preserve meats, vegetables.
05:25So by confiting the garlic,
05:27this will stay in your refrigerator for 2-3 weeks
05:30so you can freeze it for even longer.
05:32A little secret, just keep a damp towel down by your board
05:36because your fingers tend to get sticky as you're peeling the garlic,
05:39which makes then everything stick to your fingers
05:42instead of dropping down to the board.
05:44So we have our little gems of garlic here.
05:47I'm just going to put these in a small saucepan,
05:50and the key to confit, fat.
05:53So I'm going to cover these in oil.
05:56Now you might say, Lish, that's a lot of oil.
06:00But you can use this oil after you've confited them.
06:03You want enough oil to cover the garlic cloves.
06:06I'm just using a little bit of thyme here.
06:08You can use thyme, you can use rosemary if you like chili flakes.
06:11But with this one, we wanted to focus on the flavor of the garlic
06:15and transforming that garlic.
06:17Low and slow, just tiny bubbles around the garlic cloves.
06:20That's what we're looking for.
06:22So this is pretty much where we want it to stay
06:24for the full amount of time that it's going to cook.
06:26You can see there's little bubbles going around those garlic cloves.
06:30Nothing too rapid.
06:32So we're going to let this go for anywhere from maybe 40 minutes to an hour.
06:37These gems have been going for about 55 minutes right now,
06:42and it's looking like they're pretty perfect.
06:45You know it's ready when it's soft and that light golden brown.
06:49That's just gorgeous, right?
06:51So this, I would now want to cool off
06:54and then store in the refrigerator at least 24 hours
06:57just to let those flavors mingle,
06:59and then both the oil and the garlic are ready to use.
07:03So the little jewels of garlic, when you confit them,
07:06actually add a little garnish to the dish.
07:08It adds a silky texture to something that might be crispy,
07:11like romaine lettuce.
07:13And then the oil itself that you can use to saute broccoli rabe
07:16or other vegetables, it's just delicious.
07:20Garlic Cream
07:22Garlic cream is really just heavy cream
07:24that's been simmered with some peeled and smashed garlic,
07:27so it has that essence of garlic.
07:29Again, we start with a head of garlic.
07:32We're just going to break it up into cloves.
07:35We're going to use about 12 of them.
07:37Really the focus here is the cream,
07:39so smashing the garlic brings out the oils
07:43and opens up all the crevices
07:45so that the flavor infuses into the heavy cream.
07:48You just want to add about a cup of cream or so
07:51over medium heat for now just to bring it up to a simmer,
07:54and we're going to season it with a few cracks of black pepper
07:58and a little sprinkling of salt.
08:01You want to just bring it to a simmer again
08:03until it kind of bubbles and maintains that light bubble.
08:06Of note when infusing your cream with garlic,
08:09stand by so that you can control the heat
08:11and stop it from boiling over.
08:13Our cream has come to a simmer.
08:15Now I've reduced the heat
08:17so that there is just a little bit of bubbling happening,
08:20and I'm just going to let it go for about 45 minutes or so
08:23until the garlic is soft
08:25and the cream is super flavorful with that garlic flavor.
08:28My cream mixture has been going for about 45 minutes now,
08:31so you can tell that this cream mixture is ready
08:34because the cream has reduced, the garlic is tender,
08:37it's nice and thick.
08:39Look at how that cuts the back of the spoon, huh?
08:41You want to incorporate that garlic.
08:43You can puree it with an immersion blender,
08:45or you can strain it out and just use the cream as a beautiful garnish.
08:48So either way, it's going to be delicious.
08:51I mean, what's better than garlicky mashed potatoes
08:54where you use the cream,
08:56maybe you've pureed the garlic into it
08:58so that it has that intense garlic flavor.
09:00Drizzle over the top. No one's ever mad at that, right?
09:03And then it goes great as a garnish for soup.
09:05I mean, tomato soup seems like a natural pairing, right?
09:08And it makes it beautiful.
09:10It makes it seem like it came from a restaurant.
09:12The utility of garlic cream is legit.
09:18We are on to garlic butter.
09:20Let's go, huh?
09:22I'm going to do about 10 cloves of garlic.
09:25So in this case, it's great to smash the garlic
09:28because I'm going to chop it finely,
09:30and that brings out all the oils anyway.
09:32So this is just kind of giving them a head start.
09:34I'm going to be taking the edge off
09:36by sauteing it in a little bit of butter
09:38just so that the garlic kind of has a chance
09:41to relax and bring out
09:45some of the underlying flavors of the garlic
09:47versus just raw garlic.
09:49I'm still removing the little root ends
09:52because, again, they're just not very palatable.
09:54We want to go relatively fine
09:56because the garlic should be distributed evenly in the butter.
10:00You don't really want to bite down on big chunks of garlic.
10:03Technically, you could do this in a mini food prep.
10:06Less dishes this way.
10:08I'm going to heat up a small saute pan.
10:10Get that going over medium heat.
10:12Melt about 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter.
10:16My butter is melted, so in goes my garlic.
10:20I like to keep this at about a medium heat
10:24just so that I don't brown the butter
10:26and the garlic cooks nice and slow.
10:29I am going for a little whisper of color on the garlic,
10:32but I don't want that to happen too quickly,
10:34so medium is kind of the safe spot.
10:36Nice amount of salt.
10:38There are bubbles all around the garlic,
10:40which is a good thing.
10:42You want even cooking.
10:44You want to know that that pan is hot,
10:47that the garlic is mellowing.
10:49This comes together in 2 or 3 minutes.
10:51Keep an eye on it.
10:53Once you see dark brown happening
10:56or maybe the butter brown too quickly,
10:58that's your sign that you need to pull it off the heat pretty quick.
11:01But right now, I'm starting to smell the shift in color.
11:05So I'm going to pull this off,
11:07let the bubbles subside a little bit,
11:09and see where I'm at.
11:11Oh, that looks about right.
11:13There are whispers of golden in the garlic,
11:16so I am going to stop this right here
11:19and let it cool a little bit.
11:21You don't want to go directly from super hot
11:23into room temperature butter,
11:25because chances are you're going to melt the butter
11:27that's at room temperature.
11:29Our garlic mixture has cooled.
11:31You can see that whisper of golden.
11:33I love that.
11:35Add that to a bowl.
11:37I have room temperature butter here
11:39that is unsalted butter,
11:41so that we can control the seasoning entirely.
11:43It totals an entire stick of butter,
11:45so that's easy to remember.
11:47So good.
11:49Don't you just want to smear it on a piece of ciabatta bread
11:52and top it with cheese and dive in?
11:54One last thing to do.
11:56Taste, taste, taste.
11:58A little more salt.
12:00Now, consider this your base.
12:02You could add some fresh thyme,
12:04some chopped rosemary,
12:06a little parsley, lemon zest,
12:08Calabrian chili paste,
12:10fennel pollen,
12:12a little cracked coriander seed would be delicious.
12:14Look at that.
12:16I have my garlic butter, and you can store it just like this.
12:18Put a little cling film over the top,
12:20throw it in your refrigerator.
12:22It'll keep for probably about a week, week and a half.
12:24Garlic butter is delicious on a steak,
12:26on a piece of fish, on vegetables,
12:28and it means that cheesy garlic bread
12:30is only a few minutes away.
12:32The versatility of garlic is real, clearly.
12:34I mean, you can make it crispy,
12:36you can make it creamy, you can make it soft,
12:38you can make it luxurious.
12:40There's so many different ways to transform garlic,
12:42where it, too, can become the star of the ditch.