Things that make you scream shiok! #4 Fragrant Scent of Fried Garlic
27th April 2011 #4 Fragrant Scent of Fried Garlic.
Garlic, has been used throughout history for medicinal, culinary and supernatural purposes.
In the mid 1990s, there was this cooking show called, “Yan Can Cook“, and I used to watch it just after finishing my school work, before dinner time.
Whenever Martin Yan, the Master chef, prepared his various Chinese cuisines, he would exclaim in his thick Cantonese-accented English, “Garlic! More garlic!” He would then be chopping and smashing all the garlic furiously on his seasoned chopping board. It was an amazing sight to behold.
Garlic is widely used around the world for its pungent flavor as a seasoning or condiment. It is a very important component in many or most dishes of various regions, including eastern Asia, south Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, northern Africa, southern Europe, and parts of South and Central America.
In fact, I can vividly recall my own mother cooking with garlic, and onions. The overpowering smell that lingers in the kitchen after that, is actually quite good in chasing away mosquitoes, and of course us!
Julie Powell, an American author best known for her book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, commented in the film, Julie & Julia, “Is there anything better than butter? Think it over, any time you taste something that’s delicious beyond imagining and you say ‘what’s in this?’ the answer is always going to be butter.”
Yes, butter is nice. I cannot imagine pan-frying my beef steak without a slice of butter in the pan.
But try frying garlic, together with butter. And you will get food nirvana – absolute bliss.
Actually, frying fresh garlic by itself is already a case of sensory overload.
Let me try to describe to you this wonderful experience.
When the fresh minced or chopped garlic is thrown onto the heated pan, the broken cloves produce a hunger including waft that rises above every other cooking smell, and grabs you by your nose. It then rushes to your stomach where it ensures that the gastric juices starts churning because it has already influenced your brain to tell you, that you are really, really hungry! Honestly, I don’t know of any other food smell that can actually do that.
In short, I therefore describe the scent of fried garlic as being . . .
chewmark 