Burnt garlic?

We had a nice dinner last night at D'Angelos, an Italian institution in Philadelphia. The food was great, but one dish tasted strongly of burnt garlic.

I've read dozens of recipes warning me against burning the garlic. Many, many of them written by Italian cooks. And I've eaten in hundreds of Italian joints over the years, including many in Italy. Total news to me.

But the waiter said that the taste of burnt garlic was an authentic Italian taste -- many diners ask for dishes with a "heavy burn" on the garlic.

Have I been missing something authentic and important here?

Regards, Bob

PS: I didn't care for the taste, but much of that may be because I've scrapped my burnt garlic mistakes over the years. The taste did have a rather interesting flavor profile.

B.

PPS: restaurant website: http://www.dangeloristorante.com/ B.

I've been cooking to this standard for several months:

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
By Lord Anthony Bourdain

Roasted Garlic. Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago and garlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Please treat your garlic with respect. Sliver it for pasta, like you saw in "Goodfellas"; don't burn it. Smash it, with the flat of your knife blade if you like,but don't put it through a press. I don't know what that junk is that squeezes out of the end of those things, but it ain't garlic. and try roasting garlic. It gets mellow and sweeter if you roast it whole, still on the clove, to be squeezed out later when it's soft and brown. Try a Caesar dressing, for instance, with a mix of fresh, raw garlic for bite, and roasted for background and you'll see what I mean. Nothing will permeate your food more irrevocably and irreparably than burnt or rancid garlic. Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screw-top jars. Too lazy to peel? You don't deserve to eat garlic.

Two comments: the suggestion on Caesar dressing convinced me.

And he is absolutely right: burnt garlic permeates food in amazing ways -- the pasta carried it, the asparagus in the dish tasted only of garlic, and the olive oil had absolutely no taste -- except for the burnt garlic taste. I could even smell it in the wine -- a really nice Italian wine I'll post on separately.

Regards Bob

I never had burnt garlic in Italy. I suspect that the "waiter" was repeating a bit of misinformation to apologize for an incompetent cook.

There's no arguing taste, but, as far as I'm concerned, burnt garlic will overwhelm and destroy a dish. Still, I imagine it takes all kinds of taste buds to make a world.

I've spent a lot of time all over the Mediterranean and have not come across anyone who would burn the garlic intentionally, not even in Turkey where I've seen them fill halved 55 gallon drums (kinda like our BBQs) with olive oil, bring the oil to a boil over an open fire, and then toss in whole bulbs of garlic and whole fish. The garlic never burned.

If there is such a tradition, it has escaped my attention.

It's much better to burn the restaurant down than to burn the garlic.

Burnt garlic is offensively bitter and it permeates.

Garlic is a rather versatile bulb and can be prepared and used in many ways. It is devine when roasted. Some recipes will instruct to slightly brown the garlic, more often than not to flavor the oil. Under those circumstances the garlic is usually left whole. Chopped or minced garlic is usually not browned because the distance between brown and burnt is a flash. Once burnt, the garlic will overpower any other flavors in your dish and not in a pleasant way. I don't remember a dish being served to me in Italy with the flavor of heavily burnt garlic as a desired taste. I suggest that either the cook was trying to minimize his losses, or the waiter was trying to assure the value of his tip.

My understanding is that Italian-American cooking uses garlic differently from "Italian-Italian" cooking, relying more on the flavor of raw garlic, for instance. But even in more Americanized Italian restaurants, I've never heard of someone intentionally burning garlic.

My understanding is that Italian-American cooking uses garlic differently from "Italian-Italian" cooking, relying more on the flavor of raw garlic, for instance. But even in more Americanized Italian restaurants, I've never heard of someone intentionally burning garlic.

Actually, I started using crushed, raw garlic in many dishes because I just wanted to escape the potential for burnt garlic. The results are definitely different from when you brown your garlic. Nowadays, when I make a gravy, it's kind of coin toss based on my taste of the moment whether I infuse the hot olive oil with garlic (i.e. sauté and risk burning) or just crush it into the pot. When I make spaghetti a-yule (aglio olio), I now always crush the garlic into the bottom of a big bowl and dump the hot spaghetti on it and let the steam heat do its work.

Now, my sainted mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, great-great grandmothers, aunts, great aunts, and other female relatives whose birthdates you'll find in the middle of the 19th century and most of whom were greenhorns off the boat from Italy and never even learned to speak English, always browned the garlic lightly for gravy and other dishes. And that makes sense because you want to infuse the oil with the garlic essence. So I can't really decide what's Italian-American and what's Italian-Italian. But I always get this guilty feeling and have an eerie sense of ghostly wooden spoons being waved around knuckles when I don't brown the garlic.

But I always get this guilty feeling and have a eerie sense of ghostly wooden spoons being waved around knuckles when I don't brown the garlic.

Ah, the wooden spoon. Warms my rear end just to think of it.

Brings up a question: I haven't lately seen a wooden spoon as big as the one my mother used to swat me. Do they still make them? I believe it was four feet long...

[Jenise]

Yuck! I too have never considered nor heard of anyone else considering burnt garlic a good thing. So just now I googled it to see if there was a lot of disagreement "out there". Nope! Of the first 30 or 40 hits, all were disparaging except for one use of it in a colonic and the following recipe--Chinese!--which is just how I found it on the internet website it was posted to, all ingredients and no cooking instructions to confirm just how burned their 'burnt' was.




Suggested Accompaniments
Green Garlic Sauce (Chinese)
Honey Chilli Sauce
Green Onion and Ginger Dip
Schezuan Sauce (Chinese)


CRISPY FRIED VEGETABLES WITH BURNT GARLIC


Golden fried crisp vegetables tossed with burnt garlic and spring onion is one of my favourite starters. These fried vegetables are best eaten immediately after they are cooked. Serve them with green onion and ginger dip and Schezuan sauce.

Cooking Time : 15 mins.
Preparation Time : 15 mins.

Serves 4.

For the crispy vegetables

3 cups vegetables (baby corn, capsicums, cabbage and cauliflower), cut into long strips
½ cup cornflour
½ cup plain flour (maida)
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
1 teaspoon garlic, grated
¼ teaspoon Ajinomoto powder (optional)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
oil for deep frying

Other ingredients

2 tablespoons garlic, finely chopped
½ cup spring onion whites, chopped
1 tablespoon oil
salt to taste

To serve

green onion and ginger dip
Schezuan sauce

I've written to the restaurant and will post a reply. D'Angelo's is a Philadelphia institution -- great photos and autographs from lots of famous people -- Sinatra, Pavarotti, Valli, hundreds more. A real family place -- "My sister will give you a nice table upstairs."

[I received a series of very nice emails from the restaurant, which I admire a great deal, and can recommend to anyone who would like to try very good family Italian food in Philadelphia. I've deleted the correspondence itself, since I failed to get permission in advance of posting. Sorry.]

Harry's Roadhouse in Santa Fe has a recipe for charred garlic -- "Do not peel the garlic. Turn until toasted. Be careful as a little charring is fine, but burnt garlic has a bitterness that will permeate the finished dish."

By coincidence, we met an artist from Santa Fe at the Craft Show in Philadelphia whose studio is a mile from Harry's; he lauded the place, and we plan to try a meal or two there next week. I'll take a look at the cookbook, and talk to Harry himself about this charred garlic business.

I also found an Spanish English dictionary with this definition: pes'/ca-do fish — a l'all cremat a lal kre-mai --
fish in burnt garlic

But most of the references are negative, and nothing Italian so far.

Under "charred garlic" there are three or four books with recipes calling for charred garlic, including the one noted here.

This is from the China Moon Cafe in San Francisco, and definitely calls for charring the garlic in a wok with spinach. And a Dupree recipe calls for charred garlic with broccoli.

Google generally returns almost 500 hits for "charred garlic"; it's an ingredient I had not read about before two nights ago.

We hang out at Harry's all the time, Bob, and I have the cookbook.

The artist is Mark Bressler -- he does large wood sculptures. Says that you can see his quonset hut workshop from the Old Las Vegas Highway across the interstate, just off Bob Cate Crossing.

He also mildly reccoed the Bobcat Bite for hamburgers, and enthusiastically reccoed Venessis Restaurant on Sunday nights -- gave us an intro to Doug Montgomery, and the Santa Fe Baking Co. One of those big, open, happy artists that seem to know everyone and love to talk 24/7.

A couple of massive, incredibly powerful sculptures, we plan to stop buy next week and see his work, and try some of his recommendations during the week.

Hope we can get together -- we leave on Saturday.

Regards, Bob

Love the SF Baking Co too! We've had uneven food at Vanessie, but the piano bar is fun (and Doug is very, very good).

Bobcat Bite is someplace I keep meaning to get to for a green chile cheeseburger, but it's always either a) closed or b) slammed when I think about stopping in. It's incredibly tiny with long waits for a seat.

I know where Mark Bressler's studio is, but I'm not familiar with his work. Yet.

I'll PM you my cell number. It'd be great to meet you and Janet.

Mark warned us about the Bobcat Bite -- folks open and close when they feel like it, grind their meat every morning and serve until they run out, eight tables [?], jammed with lines -- same as "slammed"? -- but great burgers.

We're staying at the Hotel Santa Fe -- http://www.hotelsantafe.com/ I'll PM my cell phone number as well.

Regards, Bob

Well, the restaurant certainly agrees with you Jenise. I got a very nice email this morning in response to my question about the taste of burnt garlic in the dish. I'm very impressed with this restaurant.

Regards, Bob

Congrats, Bob. This is the way an integral business should work!

[Correspondence deleted -- I failed to get permission before posting. Sorry. Bob]

[Correspondence deleted -- I failed to get permission before posting. Sorry. Bob]

My kitchen still smells from the garlic I left too long on the burner Saturday afternoon. Not a pleasant smell and a lesson learned. I guess there's no such thing as caramelized garlic?

Yes, there is, but it takes some technique to get it sweet and soft, not burnt. Easiest way is the old foil and bake method. At the late, lamented Spiedini, the chef would toss raw, peeled cloves in olive oil, then roast them in the pizza oven until evenly brown and slightly shriveled- we would then use them as "chips" to scoop up soft, ripe Lou Perac cheese.

My kitchen still smells from the garlic I left too long on the burner Saturday afternoon. Not a pleasant smell and a lesson learned. I guess there's no such thing as caramelized garlic?

Roast the bulbs whole, with the skin still on.

Cut off the head of the bulb about 1/2 inch and keep it intact, pour a drop of water and olive oil--and a sprinkle basil, if feel like it--over each clove's cut tops, put the head back over the cloves and bake in a covered pot or a clay garlic baker.

I believe it's 40 minutes at 350 degrees, or something close.

When done, you pop the cloves out, soft, sweet, and "spreadably" caramelized.

One of our favorite apps at the Cowgirl in Santa Fe is crostini served with a bulb of roasted garlic, spicy salsa verde, and melted jack cheese. Yum!