How much garlic can I safely get into this dip?

[elettaria]

I recently tried an organic fruit & veg box scheme I've used in the past. After a couple of deliveries we realised that it's not for us right now, and meanwhile I've been left with a bulb of garlic which has huge cloves.

Comments

[17catherines]

I'm a huge mad garlic fan, so may not be the best person to help here, but have you considered roasting what you have left? That makes the flavour sweeter and milder, and it still mixes beautifully with beans.

What you would do is keep the garlic bulb in as much of a single piece as is possible at this stage, don't peel anything, but slice off the tip of each clove. Put it on a piece of foil, drizzle some oil over and wrap up tightly. I think 45 minutes at 200°C is about right, but it varies a lot - the garlic will be really soft when you take it out, and you should be able to squeeze it out directly onto your beans as a paste.

[elettaria]

I always find that roasting garlic burns too easily, to be honest. Also we may have run out of foil. You do get a pretty nice result with boiling, in terms of making it sweeter and milder, so I'm perfectly happy with that. Any idea of how far cooking the garlic to this level reduces its power, though?

[17catherines]

Hmm... I'd put maybe one to two cloves raw into garlic butter, and a whole bulb or more roasted. Setting aside the fact that I am a garlic fiend, this should give you some idea of the proportionality!

[elettaria]

So I could quite possibly use up the rest of the bulb, you think, since it's going to make around 3 cups of dip?

[scien]

Why not add it a bit at a time until you like the taste? There are lots of potential uses for any leftover garlic mush.

[elettaria]

Yes, I did that. And learned the hard way that an amount I think tastes good can still be far too much garlic for me. Still can't believe how many meds I needed for the resultant stomach ache last night, though nothing on the horrendous unexplained pain I had last Sunday night. Anyway, from now on I think I will avoid buying garlic cloves and just use conservative amounts of garlic purée.