Lebanese Garlic Sauce (Toum)
Most recipes recommend making toum with a neutral vegetable oil, which results in a bright white sauce and a clear garlic flavor, but I prefer to make it with a mild olive oil, which results in a greenish sauce that has a slightly bitter olive flavor—and all the health benefits of olive oil. Try a batch of each and see which you prefer! Lebanese Garlic Sauce (Toum) Makes ~1 cup ½ cup peeled garlic cloves If your garlic has green centers, split the cloves and remove the green sprouts (they'll make the sauce bitter). Place garlic cloves, lemon juice, and salt in a tall, narrow glass container like a mason jar, and use an immersion blender to blend to a paste. With the blender head (off) still in the jar, pour all of the oil in, covering the garlic and blender head completely. Next without lifting the blender head out of the oil, begin blending with a gentle up-and-down motion to gradually emulsify the garlic and the oil into a thick, mayonnaise-like sauce. When all the oil has been mixed in, taste your sauce and adjust the seasoning. Store, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to a month. Use it on *everything*. Yum.
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Native to Central
Asia, garlic (Allium
sativum L.) is now
grown across the globe.
It has long been a staple
flavoring in diets across
Asia, India, the Middle
East and the Mediterranean,
and valued as both
food and a medicine for
thousands of years. With a
new garlic harvest coming
soon, a delicious way to
use fresh garlic is to make
the tangy-spicy Lebanese
garlic sauce called toum. Similar to the Provençal
aioli (which uses garlic and egg yolks), toum is an
ultra-simple vegan version that emulsifies garlic,
lemon juice, salt, and oil into a stable, creamy,
spreadable condiment that can be used as a spread,
dip, dressing, soup-base, marinade, or sauce. 