Garlic Confit Aroma Oil
I experimented with garlic confit recently, and after a few tries, I thought a nice Aroma Oil for Ramen could be made out of it. So here is a recipe!
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Introduction
Building Aroma Oil using garlic and letting it steep in a little saucepan, while also getting garlic chips, is a fundamental practice in Ramen making. We can even stress it and get an amazing Mayu (Black Garlic Oil) out of it.
For some time, though, I have been aiming to give a different perspective over Garlic Aroma Oil, coming up with this recipe.
What does it taste like? Making a confit preparation helps garlic build its flavor really slowly, eventually resulting in a mild, smooth, kind of sweet garlic taste. Don’t get it wrong: there is a significant garlic presence that really hits in this oil, but it does hit gently.
Confit is quite a simple cooking method, consisting in cooking something in oil at a low temperature for a long time, which also helps with preservation. Basically, it is the opposite of deep frying.
Also, the resulting garlic confit cloves can be used in a bunch of different ways, as you will read later.
Recipe
Ingredients
Garlic cloves (as many as can fit)
Neutral vegetable oil (enough to cover the garlic in the cocotte)
Aromatics (optional):
Thyme
Rosemary
Black Pepper
Sichuan Pepper
Preparation
Peel the garlic cloves, making sure not to crush them. The more you can keep cloves intact, the better the outcome.
Put all the garlic cloves in the cocotte.
Add a teaspoon of Sichuan Peppercorns.
Optionally, add a few rosemary and thyme twigs on top, as well as a few grinds of black pepper. This will change the result to a more western-like flavor.
Add oil to the cocotte. It should be enough to cover all the garlic cloves.
Cover the cocotte with its lid. If you do not have a lid, you can use proper aluminum foil to wrap the top of the cocotte.
Put the cocotte in the oven at 150 °C (or 140 °C in the air fryer) for around ~90 minutes (one and a half hours).
How to use it
Aroma Oil
Cause this is what we are here for, right?
Use the resulting Aroma Oil, both at the bottom of the bowl with your tare and on the top of it after adding your toppings. I find it extremely effective for a garlicky Tonkotsu or a Chicken Paitan. Use around 15-30 mL of oil for 300 mL of soup.
A note on aromatics. In this case, if you used aromatics, you can decide to include some rosemary or thyme stems in the bowl. Carefully mind that rosemary will taste western-like, as if your bowl was mediterranean-based, instantly carrying you to Italy, Spain, France, and Greece. If this is what you are trying to achieve, go on, but I would suggest skipping it for a more traditional dish.
As a last thing, this aroma oil works well for just cooking. Use it as a base oil for more dishes like roasting a Chashu, cooking vegetables, or seasoning a steak.
Tare
If you are craving for a non-pungent garlicky tare, you are in the right place.
Smashing a couple of garlic confit cloves at the bottom of the bowl (or adding them to a miso tare) is perfect if you want to achieve both a bit of sweetness and a round garlic flavor.
Topping
Finally, I bet you already thought of just spreading a bunch of garlic confit cloves on a piece of toasted bread with some salt, and if not… what are you waiting for?
Garlic confit is mouth-watering: it is creamy, sweet, and has a subtle caramelized flavor. It melts in your mouth.
A few cloves can be added as a topping as they are, or smashed to form a little creamy ball.
Notes & Storage
If you like a more pungent, slightly bitter taste, try using a half quantity of olive oil, considering this will also turn in an overall darker greenish color of the final oil.
The whole oil and garlic confit can be stored all together in a sealed container and kept up for a few months in the fridge. Make sure to keep the cloves covered in the oil.
I bet this method could be used for other aromatics beyond garlic.
Thinking about it, I am pretty sure a lovely ginger confit aroma oil could be made out of this, not to mention some meat-based preparation making a good topping too.
I will proceed to experiment with this method, so do expect some updates in the future!
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