Does It Matter When You Add Garlic To Your Sauté?
Sautéing may seem to be a devil-may-care sort of business: Simply toss your aromatics in a pan with oil until fragrant. However, there is an order to this cooking process, especially when it comes to garlic. You cannot simply add in your chopped garlic along with your onion or mirepoix. Rather, you should wait to add your garlic at the end of your cook, sautéing it for only about 30 seconds to a minute, just long enough to remove the raw flavor.
Now, you may be wondering why adding garlic last is essential. After all, what makes it different than other aromatics, such as onions and carrots? For one, garlic has a lower moisture content than onions and a higher sugar content. This makes it more prone to burning. Additionally, garlic has a much smaller surface area, which means it can overcook faster than other ingredients. This is especially true for finely diced garlic. And overcooking garlic can come down to a few seconds, with its flavor turning from fragrant to bitter and harsh in no time. This can happen even if your garlic hasn't gone black; even some browning might be too much. Cooking your garlic at the end, surrounded by other ingredients, can prevent this from happening. You'll also want to sauté your garlic at a low temperature, as this will help to prevent burning.
The best way to go about garlic
Garlic is an essential ingredient in many dishes, bringing a delicious aroma and a warm yet pungent taste to whatever dish it is added to. It's an essential building block to many foods, from the humble marinara sauce to beef chili, and, of course, Julia Child's mashed potatoes. Yet, for all of its culinary ubiquity, garlic is quite misunderstood. Yes, that pungent little allium is actually quite complex, and quite the gustatory shape-shifter.
You might notice that a roasted bulb of garlic tastes more buttery than minced garlic, which tends to have a sharper flavor. This is because the punchy taste of garlic comes from allicin, a compound released when the cell walls of the bulb are compromised by cutting or crushing. The more you cut your garlic, the more allicin is released, so the more you chop your garlic, the more intense the taste will be. You can easily adjust the intensity of your garlic in a recipe by cutting (or keeping in tact) your bulbs of garlic. Additionally, letting your cut garlic sit on the counter before adding it to your recipe will release more allicin (and other compounds) that will only further add to your dish's flavor. Keep these pointers in mind, and remember to always add your garlic in after your other aromatics to make the most of your dish.