So, what’s the deal with that green core in a garlic clove; remove it or not?
Smart girl (or boy), whoever discovered thousands of years ago that garlic makes your food so much tastier and more flavorful. (And also that rubbing your entire body with a mixture of garlic and thyme protected you from snakes while you were mowing the field, but that’s beside the point.) By now, hardly anyone can do without it, yet there’s still one garlic issue that can occasionally get the culinary world worked up…
Do you ever find yourself, just about to whip up some wonderfully delicious spaghetti aglio olio, staring doubtfully at that bulb of garlic because green shoots are growing out of the cloves? I was always told that the green core had to be removed because it would taste bitter and basically ruin the entire dish. Do I usually feel like doing that? Noooo. And guess what?
Bitter, schmitter
The culinary nerds at Cooks Illustrated (and we say that with the utmost respect, because we adore food-crazed researchers who want to test and measure everything in the kitchen) discovered that it makes no difference whatsoever whether you remove that green sprout (core stem) first or not.
First, the researchers tasted the green core itself (separately), and then the clove around it. They discovered that the green sprout itself doesn’t taste bitter at all, but rather herby and grassy, while the white clove around it is fiery and pungent – even more so than young raw garlic cloves in which no green core has yet developed. Good news as far as I’m concerned; I love herby and grassy as well as pungent, so bring it on!
It’s not the inside that counts after all
So it’s not that green core that delivers the extra-sharp flavor; it’s the clove around it. And removing the core isn’t worth the extra effort: embrace your inner lazybones, simply take into account that the clove will be sharper and adjust your recipe accordingly if necessary. If you prefer a somewhat milder garlic flavor, for example because you’re going to use forty cloves in this chicken dish, use cloves that haven’t sprouted yet. Because removing that core won’t make much difference.
Also read:
- How to make the most delicious roasted garlic in the oven
- An ode to garlic powder
- How peeling garlic becomes a breeze
Sources: Mashed, Cook’s Illustrated
