Recipes often call for garlic either in cloves or teaspoons. Here is everything you need to know, from cloves of garlic to tsp. conversion, to how many cloves are in a head.
A lot of people use garlic as their go-to ingredient when their dish needs a little something extra. Did you know that there are also a lot of health benefits to eating garlic? It can help boost your body’s immune system, lower high blood pressure or cholesterol, boost athletic performance, and more.
A lot of recipes call for a certain number of garlic cloves, but what is a clove of garlic? Here is everything you need to know about garlic cloves.
What is a Clove of Garlic?
When purchasing garlic, you’ll often find a bulbous ingredient with a papery outside. This, however, is not a clove of garlic. This is what’s called a head of garlic or a garlic bulb.
When you peel the flakey paper-like exterior of a head of garlic away, you’ll find 10 to 12 sections. These sections are the cloves. These cloves can be easily separated from one another, allowing you to remove what you need from the head and leave the rest in place until a later time.
How Many Cloves are in a Head
Garlic is a vegetable, so you may think that you’d use a similar volume to other vegetables. Despite the small size, though, a singular clove of garlic can easily overpower a dish. Alliums like garlic and onions are of course quite pungent. One singular clove has a stronger flavor than just about any other vegetable. Because of this, it’s best to use it sparingly.
Generally, a recipe won’t call for more than 1 or 2 cloves, unless garlic is meant to be the main flavor profile. How many cloves are in a head, you may ask? The number varies, but it’s almost always between 10 and 12.
How Much is a Clove of Garlic?
When a recipe calls for garlic, they often give the measurements in X number of cloves. But how much is that? Exactly how much garlic is in one clove?
While this will vary from clove to clove, and no two will be exactly the same amount, it’s generally understood that when something calls for a clove of garlic, they generally want the same amount as one teaspoon of minced garlic.
How to Prepare Garlic
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When preparing to create a garlic recipe, there are only a few steps you need to take.
To start out, you’re going to need to determine how many cloves of garlic you’ll need. If you only need a couple, then place the head of the garlic root side down on a cutting board and press on it firmly.
Peel the papery outer layer and remove the desired number of garlic cloves. Trim the longer root-side tips of the garlic cloves off. Gently crush the clove between the cutting board and the broad side of the knife. Then simply peel the skin away.
Recipes and Cooking Methods
Garlic is a very versatile ingredient and there are dozens of ways it can be used and a nearly endless number of recipes. The method you use to cook the garlic can affect the strength of its flavor, texture, and more.
Raw Garlic Cloves
Garlic can be eaten raw. We love it finely minced in guacamole, and blended into hummus or salad dressings.
Sauteed
Sauteing garlic is one of the most common cooking methods. It enhances the nutty, savory flavors of garlic, especially when cooked in oil. When sauteing with butter, though, you’ll have to keep a vigilant eye on it because it can burn quicker than oil. Sauteing is also best done in a pan that you know even heats throughout.
Sauteed garlic is most commonly used in recipes where it will appear alongside other ingredients rather than being cooked or baked into them. For example, it’s especially popular with other sauteed veggies (like spinach or green beans) or roast chicken.
Roasted
Roasting garlic is another very common cooking method. When roasting garlic cloves, it’s easiest to avoid burning them by leaving them in the garlic head and wrapping them in tin foil, then separating them once they’re done. When they’re done, they should be a light brown color and feel softened when you squeeze them.
Roasted garlic is most often used in dishes like pasta, pizza, and sometimes mashed potatoes. Roasting garlic in the oven brings out its more subtle flavors and gives it a creamier texture with softened edges. This also optimizes the amount of vitamin C and antioxidants you get by consuming garlic.
Baked
The third most common way to prepare garlic is to bake it into a dish (usually something dough-based). The most recognizable example of this is garlic bread.
You simply chop up the cloves and work them into the uncooked dish before popping it into the oven. As the dish cooks, the garlic will roast, and the juices will be released into the rest of the dish.
Confit
One of our favorite methods of cooking garlic is by slowly baking garlic cloves in olive oil. Here is our favorite Garlic Confit recipe.
Pickled
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Pickled garlic cloves make a nutritious and tasty snack. You can add sliced or whole garlic cloves to homemade dill pickles or picked beets, or pickle them in brine alone.
Storing Leftover Garlic Cloves
Unlike most fruits and vegetables, garlic is fairly easy to store. As long as you keep it in a cool, well-ventilated place with dim lighting, it will last for a while.
Putting it in a plastic bag or other airtight storage apparatus causes the garlic to rot faster. If you must store them in something, mesh or breathable paper bags are your best shot. Garlic that has already been minced can be stored in the freezer to make it last longer.
How to Grow Garlic
Unlike a lot of fruits and vegetables, garlic doesn’t need much to grow, and you don’t even have to plant the entire head. All you need is one clove. That being said, it does take a much longer time frame for it to grow fully- around 2-3 times as long- compared to most other vegetables. Whereas the average vegetable will take 60-70 days to grow, garlic can take up to 9 months when grown from a single clove.
Dig a hole in your soil 3 inches (or 8 cm) to grow garlic. If you’re planting more than one clove, do not put more than one in each hole, and make sure that they are well-spaced. They should be roughly as far apart as they are deep. The root side must be planted facing downward.
When the clove or cloves have been placed in the hole, re-cover them in the soil and make sure that they don’t get too much water. When the garlic is fully grown, you can either harvest it green if you plan on using it fresh right away, or you could wait until it starts to turn yellow for dried garlic.
The History of Garlic
The history of garlic dates back quite a long time ago, with some of the earliest known mentions of it being 5,000 years ago in Egyptian and Indian cultures. It’s also mentioned in Babylonian culture as many as 4,500 years ago and in China between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago (depending on your sources).
Garlic is native to South and Central Asia, as well as the North-Eastern parts of Iran. Sumerians, around 2,500 BC, used garlic in multitudes when they discovered its healing properties. There are even rumors among some archaeological and historical circles that the Sumerians are the ones that introduced it to China, Japan, Korea, and the surrounding areas. Those are only rumors, though, and it is still widely believed that garlic originates from China.
Ancient Chinese cultures were well aware of the medical benefits of garlic and were using it in their remedies in 2,700 BC. Garlic was believed to lift spirits and was often given to people suffering from what we now know as depression.
Ancient Indian cultures first used garlic not as an ingredient in their food but as an ingredient in a tonic called roborants. They used this tonic to cure a multitude of ailments, including things like skin disease, hemorrhoids, general weakness, and far more.
Ancient Egyptians were very diverse in their use of medicinal, aromatic, and edible plants. Before they became an ancient world power, Egyptians contented themselves with the plants and ingredients that were native to their region rather than traveling far and wide to trade for more exotic things.
Among these native ingredients was garlic, which they relied on heavily. Garlic was believed to give people more physical strength, so as Egypt rose to power, the use of garlic rose along with it. Unfortunately, it became widely used for more nefarious purposes: to strengthen slaves so that they’d be able to get more work done in a day.
Conclusion
Garlic is a flavorful and healthful ingredient for cooking. When wondering, “How much is a clove of garlic in teaspoons?” the answer is one clove of garlic is about 1 teaspoon of minced garlic, but this varies depending on the size of the cloves. There are usually about 10-12 cloves per head of garlic.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: HOW
