Peeled Garlic

[Octaveman]

I've tried tubs of peeled garlic and those vaccum packed bags of garlic and each time I keep coming back to buying whole garlic. It's been a year or two since I've used either pre-peeled product so things might be different but I doubt it. I also could've have used something other than Christopher Ranch at the time. The flavor was off for me and I had a hard time getting used to it. I'm also trying to remember if I had issues with the quality of the product as well other than flavor. Fresh garlic seems to have a snap to it when I mince it. The PPG seemed rubbery IIRC. Maybe brand is a significant factor here.

At any rate, I always buy the 3lb. bag of garlic that Costco sells that I believe is from Christopher Ranch. I keep it in a deep drawer and pull out bulbs as needed. It only takes a minute to peel and mince plus the cloves are often quite huge so I'll end up only using one for my meal.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Octaveman (log)

[chefdad]

Having read all the traffic on this I still hold to my opinion that fresh is best. And that peeling/ chopping garlic is just not that difficult a chore.

I must admit that I haven't tried pre-prepared garlic for some time so maybe the quality has improved. It certainly sounds as if, judging by the comments from a lot of you, that the quality of garlic varies a lot in your markets. From mediocre to lousy. I sympathize; if I had that kind of quality problem I'd be tempted to try pre- prepared as well.

Fortunately I don't have that problem. Here in France the garlic quality is pretty universally good. The French housewife will not put up with anything less than a high standard. Also, we can buy several varieties of garlic and yes, you can tell the difference between them. There are several seasonal varieties as well.

A suggestion. For those of you who don't like peeling garlic much try finding & buying elephant garlic. If its fresh and good it has the same kick as regular garlic, but you only have to peel 1/4 as much.

←

use fresh garlic at home where if it takes u a little longer is not that big of a deal. but in a restaurant setting, where you shit tons of garlic, it makes a huge difference. Ive worked at both restaurants that use fresh and some that dont. normally you would order a sack of garlic heads and would have to assign someone to peel and prepare that sack. that costs money and time. buying prepeeled garlic solves this, and the quality is just as good, and if not, better than fresh garlic. is not a matter of laziness it just saves people money and time.

[Toliver]

use fresh garlic at home where if it takes u a little longer is not that big of a deal.  but in a restaurant setting, where you shit tons of garlic, it makes a huge difference.  Ive worked at both restaurants that use fresh and some that dont.  normally you would order a sack of garlic heads and would have to assign someone to peel and prepare that sack.  that costs money and time.  buying prepeeled garlic solves this, and the quality is just as good, and if not, better than fresh garlic.  is not a matter of laziness it just saves people money and time.

←

Which is why it makes sense to use these pre-peeled cloves in a high volume kitchen, like those of Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen.

But what does the home cook do with a mega jar of pre-peeled cloves from Costco? They'd go bad before you could make dent in them.

[Fat Guy]

The large Costco jars are one of many options. In the regular supermarket, one can get both smaller jars and the packs within packs mentioned earlier.

Yesterday I got as close as I've been able to get yet to a controlled experiment. I was at Fairway and noticed that over on the rack where they have some of the garlic (there are also a number of packaged garlic products out of frame, and more still upstairs) that they had both Christopher Ranch peeled cloves (the black bags hanging on the right) and Christopher Ranch labeled whole heads in a bag (on the left a little higher up, they just had that one little bag left). So at least I knew these products were from the same grower.

I ate a thin slice of each raw, then did it again. I think the fresh had both more strength and some subtle aromatics not present in the pre-peeled. Also, the pre-peeled was slightly less firm.

I then sauteed some broccoli with both types, each put through a garlic press. Again, the pre-peeled had, I think, a little less potency. Nothing on the order of half, but maybe 20% less potency. There was no qualitative flavor or aroma difference in the cooked product, as far as I could tell. Indeed, at one point I lost track of which bowl had which sample, and it took some doing to sort that out.

[fooey]

I guess it just annoys me. I go near apoplectic when I see those presliced apples and bagged salad, etc.

A friend often tweaks me re:bread, "Yes, yes, two or three days to make it, yes, yes, your own starters, yes, yes, we know you grow your own wheat and have a millstone, yes, yes, JUST GO TO THE STORE AND BUY IT ALREADY."

[Fat Guy]

Today I had an opportunity to administer a blind tasting, albeit on a very small scale. I was making pesto and had a clove of each garlic (the pre-peeled and whole, both from Christopher Ranch) on the cutting board, and I was shaving off paper-thin slivers with my knife and tasting back and forth, when my wife wandered through and asked what I was doing. I asked her if she'd mind tasting two samples of raw garlic and giving me her impressions.

At first she thought they tasted the same, then she said she liked the pre-peeled better (not knowing that it was pre-peeled). I asked why, and she said it was less bitter. I asked which she thought was stronger and she said they were about the same in strength. At no time did I tell her what the comparison was about. I have no idea what this information is worth.

[Aloha Steve]

I know we are talking about granulated garlic here,.....how about the already peeled and chopped fresh garlic that comes in its juice ?

I 'pushed the easy button' and use it in every instance where fresh garlic is called for.

Thoughts ?

[Lilija]

I know we are talking about granulated garlic here,.....how about the already peeled and chopped fresh garlic that comes in its juice ?

I 'pushed the easy button' and use it in every instance where fresh garlic is called for.

Thoughts ?

I think that, like granulated, has places. I never used it before, till a friend of mine gave me her recipe for arroz con pollo, and she insisted that I HAD to use the jarred stuff for it. I tried it with fresh, and for sure it didn't taste like hers (which is the best goddamned arroz con pollo I've ever had in my life). So, I keep it around, again, for certain things. It's not as sharp as fresh, and melds nicely with rice. I think, though, using it in EVERY instance where fresh garlic should be, you might be missing out on some of the hot sharpness that fresh offers.

[Chris Hennes]

A few weeks ago I opened my mail and was greeted by the unexpected (and strong) smell of garlic: it seems that Fat Guy, hoping to win some converts to pre-peeled garlic (which does not appear to be available here in OK) had mailed me a package of pre-peeled and a package of regular fresh garlic, both the same brand, for comparison purposes. I've been using both of them since then, and have a few comments, most of which are in line with what has been said previously. First off, the convenience factor of the pre-peeled is nice, but hardly decisive. I'm not sure that opening the package, and then finding a container for the leftovers, takes me much less time than peeling fresh. Second, the fresh is unsurprisingly much more pungent: I found myself using substantially more peeled to get the same garlic flavor. That said, once adjusted for pungency, I could not identify any difference in the resulting dishes (note that none of these dishes featured garlic prominently, it was a background flavor in various braises, etc.). The one place where the pre-peeled was superior was in burgers, where its reduced pungency eliminated my usual blanching step to tame fresh garlic.

[Fat Guy]

Oh, I'm glad you resurrected this topic, because I just had a pre-peeled garlic experience this past weekend that I thought was noteworthy.

My friend Sean and I were preparing three butterflied legs of lamb for a dinner party. The method involved refrigerating the lamb overnight with garlic, rosemary and various other seasonings. The total required garlic amount was 27 cloves.

Needless to say, peeled garlic was a big time-saver here. This particular peeled garlic came from Stew Leonard's, a supermarket (but better) in Danbury, CT, where they sell the peeled garlic in the produce section just in 16-ounce deli containers. This packaging is nice if you want to use a lot. The Christopher Ranch packaging-within-packaging system is nice in that it preserves the garlic longer, and so is good for small amounts used occasionally, but Mr. Hennes is correct that it sometimes feels like working through all that packaging is as hard as peeling a couple of cloves of garlic.

Another time-saver: crushing the cloves with a mallet between sheets of wax paper. This was so fast it was scary.

[pastameshugana]

Just weighing in: I've been using pre-peeled garlic (remember I'm in India, so YMMV) for months, and just switched to unpeeled to test it out.

Holy smokes - I'm using 1/3 the amount, it's much more potent, and looks nicer in the veg basket on the counter, too!

[pants]

Yup, I'm for fresh. We had a fresh garlic shortage recently where I live (go figure ...) and ended up buying a jar of crushed garlic - very pungent when you open the jar, but need to use a LOT in your dish to get the same flavour. My issue with garlic is not the peeling, but whether to crush or chop - crushing involving trying to dig bits out of the garlic crusher and chopping inevitably results in smelly fingers. My latest trick is to grate on a microplane - no stinky fingers and works brilliantly for frozen fresh ginger as well.

Edited October 26, 2009 by pants (log)

[Fat Guy]

I've found that there's a major difference between whole pre-peeled cloves and those jars of chopped garlic. The whole pre-peeled seem to me indistinguishable from fresh save for some reduced potency.

I need to figure out a way to quantify the potency issue, because it has been estimated anecdotally here as a 300% difference (fresh is three times as potent as pre-peeled) whereas I'd probably call it a 25% difference (fresh is one quarter more potent than pre-peeled). So it would be interesting to know the actual number, if that is measurable.

However, what we're calling the potency, pungency or strength of garlic is only relevant in some cooking situations, namely those where you're looking to get an acute garlic taste out of the garlic. If you're making whole roasted garlic cloves, garlic confit or using garlic in most long-simmered dishes, what you're getting from the garlic is mostly a sweet flavor that doesn't seem to vary in strength between pre-peeled and fresh. But I'd need to do some much more detailed comparisons in order to state that with authority.

[nakji]

I used a lot of pre-peeled garlic and pre-chopped garlic in Korea, as dishes there tend to call for a lot of garlic, and supermarkets carried a variety of coping mechanisms for this. Actually, the majority of product available in Korea when I lived there was pre-peeled, and it was harder to find the stuff with the peel on. Take from that information what you like. I often used the pre-minced product in a bag, because I found the flavour it gave off to be a stronger, more bitter one than garlic I peeled and minced on my own. I thought this flavour was fairly distinctive in a lot of the jigaes and other dishes I tried there, so I used it to replicate that taste. Now when I want to get that same taste for home cooking, I use my Japanese ginger grater, keep the clove whole and unpeeled, start with the small tip, and grate. The peel protects your fingers and comes off automatically, and provides a nice hump of pureed garlic that you can smear off with your finger.

[...tm...]

Back when I was in the midwest and got a bunch of different varieties of hardneck garlic from the farmer's market I tried to determine the difference in potency and flavor. I noticed right away that I could really only tell major differences between the flavor when raw. Some varieties that were so potent they made my head steam were great, but not 2-3x more potent (as they were raw) than the other varieties after being sauteed. So, it definitely depends on your usage. I also noted that these same garlic cloves, after a month or so of storage were much less potent. So, I guess the difference in potency depends on the type and age of the garlic cloves you are comparing it to. If it is those mesh sleeved softneck Chinese garlic with the roots cut so they'll last a long time, there is probably very little difference.

Now that I'm in California I get bags of the peeled variety and use it in most cooked dishes, or if I need a lot of garlic, but I get cloves from the farmer's market too for when I need that extra sharp garlic flavor. Of course, most people don't like garlic as much as I do...

One other random observation. The local supermarket has both organic and non-organic peeled garlic. I usually buy the organic, but have noticed it needs to be used more quickly and that the cloves start to go soft on the outside more quickly than the non-organic. I don't know if there is some unlisted treatment the non-organic cloves go through, or if it can be ascribed to quicker sales of non-organic, though at this store the prices are reasonably similar and Berkeley folks tend to prefer organics, so it remains a mystery to me.

[OliverB]

Michael Ruhlman has an interesting short article about garlic online. Among the things mentioned it recommends to not use the pre-peeled garlic you can find in jars and to let chopped/minced garlic sit for a couple minutes to let it develop it's flavor (since two things need to mix to create what we call garlic flavor).

The article is undecided about de-germing garlic, i.e. taking out the germ that grows inside. I usually take it out if it's green(ish) in color, otherwise I leave it in. I either learned that from my mom or my aunt who lives in Italy, can't remember.

The article is here if you like to read it, it's short and interesting.

I never used the pre-peeled garlic, the containers always seem way too big for what I use (even though I use quite a bit of garlic in cooking) and I don't trust things that look too perfect. And I stay far away from minced garlic or garlic in tubes and all those things. I actually love to chop garlic, love the smell and don't even mind it on my fingers.

Curious what people's opinion/experience is with the pre-prepped garlic things out there.

Side note: the article does not talk about dried garlic. I used to use it a lot, stopped using it for a while, and recently started to use it again in rubs, marinades, and occasionally in salad dressing. Personally I consider it almost to be something different than garlic. I like it, but it seems to have a different taste.

[chileheadmike]

One restaurant I used to work at used pre-peeled garlic. It was OK. I think the flavor was a little stronger than the off the clove stuff. I don't mind peeling it either.

A good friend of mine tried the pre-chopped variety. His response, "Like kissing your sister".

[judiu]

I have used the pre-peeled garlic on occasion; I don't think much of it, as the flavor is minimal and you need to use at LEAST twice as much to get up to speed. The minced garlic in jars is HORRIBLE, most of what you taste from it is the acidic preservative used to avert the risk of botulism. (I'm sure it has other preservative factors, such as color retention, but ICK!) When I microplane garlic for garlic butter, I usually will just work around the germ and discard it, but when a whole clove is just smacked and added to a marinade or something, why bother?

[andiesenji]

I use the pre-peeled garlic. However, I always check the sell-by date and only buy the containers that have at least six weeks to go.

There are smaller jars available and I occasionally buy those but I usually buy from Smart & Final because they have a rapid turnover and the product there is very fresh.

I also look at the garlic to be sure it is plump and that there is absolutely NO free moisture in the container.

I also look at the garlic to be sure the cloves are evenly sized (medium to medium-large) which is what I use in my recipes.

When I break down a garlic head, I toss the little ones anyway.

It has as much flavor as garlic from a bulb that has been hanging in my pantry for a few months and I have tasted them side-by-side.

At this time of year, most of the bulb garlic I have has begun sprouting and it is a chore to cut the "germ" out of every clove - and this bit is bitter and the bitterness does show up in dishes where there isn't another strong flavor. (Tomatoes, for instance).

I'm not going to change my habits because of an article. I'm somewhat set in my ways.

[Toliver]

There was a previous discussion (I can't recall the specifics) about the use of pre-peeled garlic. Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen has mentioned that they use the pre-peeled in their recipes to save prep time in the kitchen. They said the flavor in cooked recipes isn't much different than garlic you peel yourself. You can take their opinion or leave it, of course.

They did say that they don't recommend the use of the pre-chopped stuff.

It's your kitchen...do what you want and can live with.

[BarbaraY]

I always use fresh garlic. I have worked in kitchens where pre-peeled garlic was used and some where jarred chopped garlic was used. I prefer to use neither as they always taste rancid and the pre-chopped is downright rank.

Always remove the germ unless it's totally white. It tastes so much better.

[robirdstx]

I buy the pre-peeled garlic and store it in the fridge in a glass jar covered with extra dry vermouth. Gives the vermouth a nice flavor too! I got this tip several years ago from this page.

[OliverB]

I never thought about buying the pre-peeled kind until I read the post above, I might just have to try that

And I'm looking forward to baby garlic showing up at the farmer's market hopefully soon, an other obsession of mine

[Will]

I never buy the pre-peeled kind. That's interesting about letting the garlic sit for a minute - I had always thought you were supposed to cut garlic as close to the time of use as possible, and cover it in lots of oil if you're pre-chopping more than a very short amount of time ahead.

I usually de-germ garlic, especially if I'm using it raw in a recipe.

I don't find the peeling part of garlic to be the time consuming bit. I chop off the root end, and whack it with the blade of the knife (or press a little more gently if I don't want to smash it). Takes about 10 seconds. Chopping can be a little more time consuming, especially if it needs to be really even.

[Chef Jonny]

Very nice article.... good read.

I've worked in restaurants where the chef is adamant to use un-peeled garlic, and then I worked in some places where buying peeled garlic just makes fiscal sense - "put that in the robo-coupe and get back on line!!"... I buy unpeeled for myself because a)it's cheaper and b)I like the smell of it. Albert Roux once wrote that the germ was "indigestible"... garlic burps??

All in all, though, the majority of the garlic we get in NA is ho-hum... I was once in Paris and passed a market stand... the guy looked at me as though I had a hole in the head for NOT buying all his garlic. It was the first harvest of Rocambole garlic, and going to my cramped little apartment, slicing the juicy bulbs, sauteeing in a little butter with cooked lentils and smoked hock, I was hooked - thinking of the regular stuff(Artichoke varieties) we get as "better" peeled or unpeeled really doesn't phase me anymore.