Blanched Garlic

It seems that the subject of blanching garlic has come up recently for me several times and I have been recommending what I learned in cooking school for this process, i.e. bringing the peeled cloves to boiling, in water, up to 3 times (cover cloves with water, bring to a boil, strain and repeat 2 more times).  Each time the cloves are boiled, their flavour will mellow.

I blanch garlic in order to remove the bitterness and potent bite of it when it is raw.  This is especially useful in recipes like gaspacho, hummus, aioli, as I find the taste of raw garlic tends to overpower the more delicate flavours of the other ingredients.

This is really a question of preference and if you like garlic, then by all means, go ahead and use it raw to your hearts content.  For me,  garlic is good but in small doses and I find myself now using blanched or pickled garlic scapes from Québec (fleur d'ail) more and more in many recipes that call for regular garlic.

You can buy pickled garlic scapes on line at Le petit mas

If you've blanched more cloves than you need, keep them in the refrigerator for a few days in an airtight container or cover them in oil and freeze them.  They will be easy to scoop out for other dishes as the oil will not freeze.  


Here is a quick video on blanching garlic: