Toum (Garlic Sauce)

Here's a lovely dip/sauce for you! Toum is basically a Levantine garlic sauce, and it’s great for a lot of things. This sauce is perfect for dipping kebabs or other meats in, ditto veggies, and also bread! I’ve seen Ross put a dollop on chili before, though I admit that feels really no to me. It’s a great all-purpose gift that functions similarly in my home to how ketchup or ranch features on the dinner table as a dip in many families.

Sometimes I use it just for dipping bread in, or to slather on thick slices of crusty, sourdough bread (sometimes with fresh parsley!) to make lazy-style garlic bread. It's an awesome, multipurpose dip. It's also really, really easy to make. Ross in particular loves this dip so much, I usually make about 2 litres at a time and freeze most of it so I only have to do it every now and again instead of weekly. This is also how I do my lemon curd, because really, if there’s space in the freezer why not get ahead on cooking duties?

This does get spicier as it ages (in fridge, it doesn’t age in the freezer at all), and sometimes it turns green or blue. If it turns blue, it’s okay. Nothing is wrong with it, but it turns green or blue because of a chemical reaction between the allicin in the garlic and the acid in the lemon.

Here’s what you’ll need

1 head garlic
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt (I actually use more, but y’all start with this baseline)
1/4-1/2 cup vegetable oil

Here’s what you’ll do

Peel the garlic* and put it in a small food processor with the salt. Pulse until it's paste-like, but still slightly granular. Add in the lemon and pulse again. Then add small amounts of oil and pulse as though you were making mayonnaise** (some people do add egg, or potato, but I prefer it made without), until it's light and has the level of garlic strength in its flavour that you like. Makes 1/2+ cups, which is plenty to serve four with a meal.

*Garlic peeling tip: if you’re peeling a lot of garlic like you would be with this, it’s much easier to toss all those unpeeled cloves in a mason jar (or other jar!), toss on the lid, and shake it up for 15 or so seconds. When you get them out, the peels should have popped off. Sometimes there are stragglers, and when that happens I remove the peeled ones and then rinse/repeat with the rest!

**Below is a video from Jamie Oliver teaching people how to make their own mayo. I think this is important, because people think making mayo is hard, but it is not despite it being a little finicky in the early stage. It also tastes better than what comes out of the jar.

For people who need firm measurements, in the early part where he’s just dripping in a tiny bit of oil, you’re looking at about 1/4 teaspoon at a time.