Cooking with garlic: you should definitely avoid these mistakes

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The spicy bulb enhances every dish and is also good for our health. However, mistakes often creep in during preparation, which can severely impair the quality and flavor of the vegetable. With these tips, you can prevent it from becoming bitter and losing its taste.

Incorrect storage
Garlic actually keeps for a very long time, up to 12 months. However, the bulb quickly becomes overripe. It is best to store it in a clay pot with a lid or wrapped in a paper bag in a dark, cool place. Garlic has no place in the fridge or a plastic container.

It is indeed crucial to cut the garlic as evenly as possible. If the pieces are of different sizes, you risk burning pieces of garlic before the others are cooked. If garlic gets too dark, it tastes unpleasantly bitter.

The garlic goes into the pan too early
Do you throw the garlic and onion together after the frying oil has heated up in the pan? That’s not a good idea! Even though onions and garlic are related, they have different frying times. Garlic burns very quickly, becomes hard, and has a bitter taste. If you are frying a dish without additional liquid, garlic should only be added when half the cooking time is over. This is because it loses its flavor in dishes that cook too long.

It is too hot
By now, you should have realized that garlic is more sensitive to cooking than you thought. It is, therefore, a fatal mistake to fry garlic too hot. Chopped pieces, in particular, burn very quickly. It can also happen that it burns on the outside but remains raw on the inside. Low to medium heat on the hob is absolutely sufficient for frying.
However, high temperatures work better in the oven. To do this, leave the tuber whole and only mash it a little with the flat side of a knife. This breaks open the cells and releases the popular aromas. The garlic is also heated more evenly.

Too much garlic
Can’t get enough of garlic? As good as the aromatic bulb may be, overconsumption is not good. Too much garlic can mask other dishes’ flavors and dominate too much. You should also avoid too much garlic for the sake of your health. Excessive consumption can irritate the stomach lining and cause abdominal pain and heartburn.

Use sprouted garlic
The vegetable develops a slightly sharper, bitter taste if the garlic bulb sprouts. But you don’t have to throw it away because of this! The sprout can be easily removed, and you can enjoy its mild taste.