Garlic + salt = paste?

[VMBrasseur]

I've occasionally read about someone chopping garlic while adding salt in order to get some sort of a garlic paste.

I tried this last night on a whim and just ended up with minced garlic. Which wasn't so bad, I guess, but not what I was expecting.

So how exactly is this done? And what would I use this concoction for?

--V

[Adam Balic]

I often make a garlic sauce for Fish or raw Veg. Take garilc, place in motar, add salt grind to a paste, add egg yolk, mix. Add olive oil drop wise while mixing, do this until you get a sauce. Is very good to add to pasta as well, as it forms a sort of creamy galic sauce, that you can use as a bse to add clams or shrimp etc to.

[VMBrasseur]

So about how much salt do you have to add, Adam?

--V

[tommy]

as adam suggests, the salt acts as a roughing agent, which provides enough roughness to sufficiently mash your garlic (or whatever else you're putting in the mortar). generally, salt will be added to whatever you're preparing, so, adjust accordingly. as emeril says, "you can't cook with your eyes". that is to say, you gotta taste as you go along (to adjust the saltiness).

[g.johnson]

I often make a garlic sauce for Fish or raw Veg. Take garilc, place in motar, add salt grind to a paste, add egg yolk, mix. Add olive oil drop wise while mixing, do this until you get a sauce.

Is this not aioli?

[VMBrasseur]

So what you're saying, Tommy, is that I need to add "just enough."

OK, maybe I'll experiment with this a bit in the next couple of weeks. With the amount of garlic I use, I think I'll have plenty of chances to try this out. I might need a larger mortar though (mine is tiny, mostly for dried herbs). Time for an Ikea run!

--V

[Wilfrid]

Is this not aioli?

If it is, I advise serving it with fried rabbit at once!

[tommy]

So what you're saying, Tommy, is that I need to add "just enough."

right on brutha. thank goodness *some*one knows what i'm talking about.

[Suzanne F]

Back to VMB's plaint: why just chopped garlic, not a paste?

In addition to the chop chop chop, and adding salt, you have to turn your knife blade almost parallel to the cutting board and gently mash down on the chopped garlic. It's kind of a "press, mash, drag the knife toward you" motion. Not the Wham! of crushing a whole garlic clove. Then you scrape the garlic back into a pile, chop some more, and then mash again. Gentleness is the key, along with patience. It can take a long time to chop-and-mash enough to make a paste.

I hope this makes sense.

[VMBrasseur]

Makes sense AND is helpful. You go, girl!

--V

[Adam Balic]

I often make a garlic sauce for Fish or raw Veg. Take garilc, place in motar, add salt grind to a paste, add egg yolk, mix. Add olive oil drop wise while mixing, do this until you get a sauce.

Is this not aioli?

Yes it is, although I use got the method from a book on Catalan cuisine and they call it something else (similar though). Oh, the egg yolk is a cope out, but it is difficult to get it to work without an egg yolk. It is one of my favourite sauces to make.