Prep Time 15 minutes
Imagine clouds of creamy garlic enveloping every bite of succulent grilled chicken. That is what Toum (Garlic in Arabic) sauce is about. It is also delicious with grilled lamb or sea food and any time you need a kick of garlic.
Born on the streets of Beirut as a sauce for a shawarma sandwich, no self-respecting household throughout the Eastern Mediterranean today would serve you grilled chicken without it.
I add a small boiled Yukon gold potato in the garlic mix for two reasons. It tones down the garlic a little and it makes the sauce fluffy. You can skip that step and save the time it takes to boil the potato. It will give you a creamy rather than fluffy consistency and an even stronger taste.
This sauce is not for the faint hearted and in the interests of being sociable either everyone eats it or no-one does!
It will last refrigerated for four weeks or portion it up and freeze for up to 6 months and have garlic sauce whenever you wish.
Lebanese Garlic Sauce
by
Derek Farwagi
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 1 yukon gold potatoe
- All the cloves of a whole garlic head, peeled
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- juice of one lemon
- 1 tspn salt
Instructions
- Start by cutting up a small potato in 1 inch cubes and boil till soft. About 15 minutes.
- Place the garlic cloves and salt in a small food processor and puree until smooth. You may want to add a couple of teaspoons of water to the garlic to help blend it and scrape down the sides two or three times to ensure that all of the garlic is finely processed.
- Drain the potato, add to garlic and blend well for about 30 seconds.
- Turn the machine back on and slowly drizzle in the oil with 1/4 cup. After the first 1/4 cup has been added, drizzle in half the lemon juice.
- Continue alternating between 1/4 cup of the canola oil and and the remaining half of the lemon juice until you've added all of the oil and lemon juice. Alternating between the two is the key to proper emulsification which creates the light and fluffy garlic sauce. ( depending on the size of your potato, you may need more or less oil to get the thick consistency you are after).
- You know the sauce is done when it has the consistency of thick whipped cream.
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