Food

The Most Garlic-Intensive Dishes We've Ever Made

Good for scaring away vampires, bad for first dates

By SAVEUR Editors

Updated: February 15, 2019

Cooks all over the world punctuate their food with garlic's pungent kick and while a clove or two add delicate heat to any dish, sometimes the occasion calls for a heavier hand.

If you're fending off vampires or a case of the sniffles, recently single, or otherwise throwing your inhibitions to the wind, read on for our 16 best garlic recipes.

Julia Child's Garlic Mashed Potato recipe — Thirty cloves of garlic go into this creamy side dish, adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume 1 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1961). The cloves are first blanched whole, which enhances their sweetness, then used to make a rich béchamel sauce that's stirred into mashed potatoes with cream and parsley. Get the recipe for Julia Child's Garlic Mashed Potatoes »Romulo Yanes

Garlic Rye Croutons — Slathered in oil, baked until crisp, then tossed with a potent quantity of raw garlic, these rye croutons ride sidecar to every soup in Latvia. If you can't get a loaf of rupjmaize, the sweet-sour Latvian bread, use the darkest loaf of rye bread you can find. Get the recipe for Garlic Rye Croutons »Susan Bell

Filipino Garlic Fried Rice with Vinegar Sauce (Sinangag) — This garlicky rice is a popular breakfast dish in the Philippines and is delicious served with fried eggs and a drizzle of vinegar sauce. Get the recipe for Filipino Garlic Fried Rice with Vinegar Sauce (Sinangag) »Romulo Yanes

Black (Aged) Garlic Stock — Also known as black garlic, aged garlic is the result of a Maillard reaction: Whole heads of garlic are slowly caramelized until the cloves turn black and tacky. Aged garlic is sweet like soft caramel and complex like tamarind. It is said to harness twice the antioxidants of cured garlic. Use this stock to add sweetness to a dish, to develop a marinade for meat, or (reduced) to build a pan sauce. Get the recipe for Black (Aged) Garlic Stock »Hannah Whitaker

Garlic-Steamed Manila Clams — This garlicky wine-sauced shellfish dish is served at The Stinking Rose, a garlic-themed restaurant in San Francisco. Get the recipe for Garlic-Steamed Manila Clams »Romulo Yanes

raw garlic and soy dipping sauce for dumplings — This sauce adds plenty of kick to your dumplings without overpowering them. It'll mellow as it sits in the refrigerator. Get the recipe for Raw Garlic Sauce »Heami Lee

Forty Cloves of Garlic Sauce (Thoum) — This potent condiment has all the heat and sharp bite of pure raw alliums. A tiny amount goes a very (very) long way. Use the freshest garlic possible; the enzymes break down over time, and the sauce can discolor as it ages. Get the recipe for Forty Cloves of Garlic Sauce (Thoum) »Ted Cavanaugh

Triple Garlic Linguine — The pasta for this potent and luxurious dish is cooked in chile-spiked chicken stock and bolstered by three preparations of garlic: roasted, fried, and sauteed. Get the recipe for Triple Garlic Linguine »Romulo Yanes

Hand-CHopped Garlic Herb Salt — If your mother or grandmother is still using dried and granulated garlic instead of fresh, make them a batch of this hand-chopped garlic herb salt. Get the recipes for Hand-CHopped Garlic Herb Salt »Nicole Franzen

Grilled Lobster with Garlic-Parsley Butter — In this perfect summer recipe, lobster is flash-grilled, then poached in its own shell in a pool of melted garlic-parsley butter. Get the recipe for Grilled Lobster with Garlic-Parsley Butter »Mark Roper

Torshi Seer Persian Pickled Garlic — For this sweet-tart Persian pickle, whole heads of garlic are fermented in a vinegar solution until the cloves are very soft. Get the recipe for Torshi Seer »Romulo Yanes

Creamy Garlic Soup — A rich soup heavy with garlic and shallots makes a hearty first course or light main dish. Serve it with plenty of crusty bread. Get the recipe for Creamy Garlic Soup »Vanessa Rees

Simple Garlic Confit — Simmering garlic in fat turns them into a spreadable condiment perfect for crusty bread. Get the recipe for Simple Garlic Confit »Andre Baranowski

Roasted Garlic Ice Cream — Roasting garlic brings out its sweetness, so the flavors meld beautifully in this simple vanilla ice cream inspired by one served at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. Get the recipe for Roasted Garlic Ice Cream »Romulo Yanes

Chez Panisse Garlic Butter — Set atop a sizzling steak, this restaurant classic melts luxuriously onto the meat. The recipe is adapted from Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Cooking (Random House, 1988). Get the recipe for Chez Panisse Garlic Butter »Romulo Yanes

Carbone's Garlic Bread — In a breadbasket at Manhattan's Carbone, we discovered the Platonic ideal of garlic bread. With roasted garlic butter made from freshly chopped cloves that are by turns sharp and mellow, heat from red chile flakes, and a bit of funk from parmesan, each crunchy bite of baguette, scattered with parsley and chives and bathed in olive oil, is fiercely flavorful and craveworthy. Get the recipe for Carbone's Garlic Bread »Landon Nordeman

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