Toum Troubles
Toum is a Lebanese whipped garlic sauce, the hallmark of which is an airy, light texture. But it is notoriously hard to master; often toum breaks and turns oily and thick. Callers wondered whether there is a trick to getting it right.
Toum is made by blending raw garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and salt into a fluffy, whipped-cream-like texture. And, as we discovered in our testing, the tools used to make it matter as much as the ingredients. Toum’s creamy consistency relies on having a stable emulsion, where oil droplets are suspended throughout the mixture. Otherwise, the toum breaks, resulting in an oily paste instead of a smooth spread. We found that a blender’s angled blades better broke down garlic into a smooth paste than the food processor’s horizontal blades, which tend to trap garlic. Additionally, the blender creates a vortex, promoting consistent mixing, whereas the food processor’s slicing motion struggles with emulsification and is more prone to heating up, which can disrupt the emulsion. While blending, it also is key to add the oil slowly in a fine, thread-like drizzle, giving it a chance to emulsify. Adding oil too quickly tends to flood the mixture. Visual and auditory cues also helped us get the right texture. As the mixture emulsifies, a “well” forms in the blender’s center, and the sound changes from sloshing to a consistent hum. And we found that if our toum got too warm and started to break, blending in a few drops of ice water helped it come back together. Get our toum recipe at 177milkstreet.com/toum.
For Better Onion Flavor, Be Gentle
Many callers have noticed that onions chopped by hand taste better than those done in a food processor. They wondered what’s up.
It’s true—how onions are prepared influences how they taste. In our tests, hand-chopped onions had a sweeter, more rounded flavor, while those prepped in a food processor were noticeably acrid and bitter. This is because of a chemical reaction that occurs when the cells of an onion are ruptured. The rupturing triggers an enzymatic reaction that produces a compound called allicin. When exposed to oxygen, allicin breaks down into sulfur compounds, leading to bitterness. A food processor’s rough, irregular chopping ruptures more of an onion’s cells than the comparatively cleaner chopping of a knife, and therefore creates more allicin and sulfurous compounds. And in our tests, we found that the bitterness persisted even after cooking. Interestingly, we also noticed that onions prepared in the processor caramelized poorly. The shredding released so much moisture onto their surfaces, the onions steamed instead of browning. So while the speed and ease of the processor may be tempting, we think the flavor trade-off isn’t worth it.
