h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I often take my garlic balls to the gym, to feed them to the other personal trainers... so if we've all eaten them, the smell oughta not be such an issue... - making a garlic concentrate sounds like a good idea, or I guess just cheat and buy some garlic puree (never used the stuff before, but I assume, its a pre-made version of a garlic concentrate....) 'too much garlic' as a concept is somewhat lost on me, so I'm aiming for seriously garlicy balls

They aren't garlic, but the Ramps I'm going to plant are a native onion species.

When I've roasted a bulb of garlic it's mellowed the flavour rather than intensifying it. Lovely squeezed out onto the plate beside a nice rare steak, to use like mustard

Deb

I made them again last night... with 30 cloves of garlic (mainly very large cloves, all nice and firm/fresh), and in total made up 88 small meatballs... no where near garlic-tasting enough, and I don't think the spices/herbs were overpowering it I'll continue trying, doubling the number of garlic cloves again, for the next attempt roughly, that was about 100 G of peeled garlic, to 1.5 KG minced pork, plus 200 G or so onion, then the dried spices/herbs/salt etc They're really tasty... just... not garlicy - had some today for lunch, with garlic butter and onion and mushrooms which helped

The most garlicky dish I've ever had is a pasta plate at a local restaurant. On the menu it's now described as "spaghetti aglio e olio" (garlic and olive oil). It is primarily olive oil over spaghetti with sliced and chopped garlic cloves, but it also has portabella mushrooms and basil. It's such an easy recipe and so delicious and so not right on a date!






BG

Oh, I lost my train of thought. I say it's "now" called spaghetti con aglio e olio. But when Frankie calls it out to the kitchen staff, or to the customer over the PA, he reverts back calling it "Spaghetti GOM!" with a long O.

It was up on the menu board in English as Spaghetti with Garlic Olive oil, and Mushrooms. But I just love hearing Frankie say in his thick Italian accent, "Spaghetti Gome, I need one spaghetti GOME!"

I like pasta fine, but I have no idea how Italian mothers make their own noodles.

I've seen noodles made by hand, it's nifty.

The dough is rolled out to a long "worm" shape. Then doubled over and swung out to stretch. This doubling and stretching is repeated until all the loops are the thickness of spaghetti.

http://youtu.be/QSGNsQz6MNI

Oh, and speaking of noodles, today I went to a Thai restaurant and tried a new dish: boat noodles. Basically beef and noodles in a bowl with broth. It's not enough broth to call it soup though. The broth was very dark... and stainy.


So, I learned that if one orders boat noodles, one should be wearing a rain slicker.



BG

When I've made noodles, or spaghetti I've cheated and used a pasta machine, to roll out the dough, and then ran the resultant 'sheets' of pasta, back through the machine, with the cutting bit attached, to make the noodle/spaghetti... having made it myself a couple of times, I probably like the majority of people with a pasta machine, decxided it was way too much effort compaired to just popping up the road, and buying decent ready made fresh pasta Hmm... maybe I should dig the machine out and try again; I did have ideas about just rolling out the sheets of dough, and then cut shapes to make my own filled pasta or pierogi instead - with a lot of garlic, natch

Maybe you just get the amounts wrong. How about 1.5 kg garlic with 100 g minced pork? (Or leave out the pork altogether)

Speaking of garlic. I was introduced to the art of raclette years ago.
One of the key rules when preparing it was: If you still smell the cheese, add more garlic, if you don't, add some extra garlic just to be on the safe side.
Another rule: The amount of wine that goes into the raclette is proportional to the amount that goes into the cook during preparation (apart from what is consumed during the actual raclette activity.) And don't forget the port.

Did you know that one bottle of wine serves two Belgian beer glasses to the brim. (purely empirical, also depends on the brand of Belgian beer)

And never ever loose your dipped food objects in the raclette! (mortal sin kind of thing)

I recall making a bolanaisgnes (yes I can't spel it...) years and years back... we'd bought two bottles of decent red for it... by the time we started cooking it we'd drunk the bottles... both... so went got another two... both were destined for the meal... only one made it in, so we went and bought more wine.... and of those two bottles only one made it in... so we got two into the meal, and about four into me and the friend... - nope... I can't recall if we ever actually ate the meal that night (sadly can't touch red wine much thesedays due to it being the only thing which can give me a migraine )

Dried pasta is one of the great things to have on hand in case you need to assemble a meal on short notice from whatever is in the pantry or fridge.

Listen niño 2Legs:
Your grail of garlic is Alioli.

Get real garlic. The small purple cloves are intensely flavoured.
Peeled, throw them into a mortar, add salt and olive oil. Mix it all until you get a thick paste,that is alioli.

Use that paste as if it was mayonaise.

I bought some black garlic aioli today. I only plan on spreading it on sandwiches so far, but I'm sure to find other uses as well.

Alioli?! don't think I've ever heard of that.... where'd one likely find it?

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/aioli

Aioli is mayonnaise seasoned with garlic

Aliola is another name for it.

I have a recipe for minestrone with garlic broth. You can also make just the garlic broth.