Thoom - Arabic Garlic Sauce
This is that magical white garlic sauce served all over the Middle East in one form or another. Thousands of my felow ex-expats know it as it comes with wonderful Saudi broasted chicken (like Al-Baik). In some countries this sauce is almost mayonaissey, and in others it is a more flow-ey sauce. I like the stiff version, but it is more time consuming as it's harder to blend. Edit: This recipe is stiffer, but flavor authentic to what I had in KSA. If you don't like so much garlic, use less. There are all sizes of garlic heads (made me feel kinda bad that Jennifer B felt so betrayed). Like any recipe, adjust to your own tastes. If you don't know the strength of raw garlic - bite into a piece! And taste as you go like you would do with any dish. I never believed a recipe should be followed blindly - I'm too picky. Bon Appetite!
DIRECTIONS
- Use a blender as the well on a food processor is too big for this. Try a wand blender, I havent, but if you have a strong one, I bet it's just the ticket.
- Drop into the blender: cleaned garlic, egg-white and a few teaspoons oil. Blend and add remaining oil by the teaspoon whilst continually blending. Expect to spend a little time now, dribbling in the canola oil (don't break the sauce!).
- You are creating an emulsion, like mayonnaise. At first it will look runny, but keep dripping the oil in gradually, and it will begin to thicken when about 1/3 - 1/2 cup is blended. Make it as stiff or as relaxed as you like, but if you add oil or lemon too much at a time, it will separate into plain oil & puree'd garlic, not an emulsion.
- If the emulsion is too thick to blend, dilute it with the lemon-juice and later w/ water (when you have the level of flavor you want from the lemon but you want to thin the sauce). Conversely, thicken it by adding more oil -- I have scared myself w/ an emulsion that was very fluid till I realized I had added too much lemon juice. So, more garlic, more oil, more blending and voila, problem solved.
- I like to keep this quite stiff as I use it like mayo, but it's harder to blend that way: it gets so thick you have to use a spatula to knock down the top so it will keep blending.
- When most of the oil is emulsified, salt to taste.
- I have seen Americanized versions of this sauce calling for everything from yogurt to mashed potatoes(!) You not need a dairy product in this. Or potatoes, lol!
- Made this way, this will keep a long time, like mayo (the egg is optional). If it's too garlicky for you, add another 1/2 C oil like you did the first cup. This is the real deal, promise!