Garlic has been in use as a condiment and for healing for quite some years.
It smells quite pungent and tastes somewhat burning with a slightly sweetish taste.
The smell of garlic is caused by the essential oils and ingredients like allicin and allisatin.
These ingredients are known to help to lower the cholesterol in your body.
Garlic is often used in the kitchen for cooking, as well as in medicine. Let’s look into some of the ingredients, uses, and benefits of Garlic.
Garlic has essential minerals like zinc, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, sulfur, and chlorine and iodine.
It is also a rich source of Vitamin A, B, C, and K.
Uses of Garlic in medicine
Garlic cloves have a strong antiseptic effect. It has long been used as a remedy for inflammation of mucous membranes, colds, and bronchitis.
Garlic also has diuretic and expectorant effects. Garlic is reported in many research studies that it can help to control high blood pressure.
Garlic can also help to reduce the bad cholesterol and low LDL cholesterol is linked to several health benefits, compared to when it’s high.
It also has cardioprotective properties and it can help to prevent heart diseases if consumed regularly.
Since garlic is rich in sulfur, it can help to detoxify heavy metals and lead from the body, and also help to aid better absorption of nutrients such as zinc and iron.
It can also help to improve bone health and quicken wound recovery.
Use of Garlic in the Kitchen
Garlic is available in many varieties, ranging from fresh whole tubers to the dried variety as granules or powder.
Some others can also be mixed with salt, pickled, as well as a puree in glasses or tubes and also occasionally deep-frozen.
Garlic goes well with almost all meat, fish and poultry dishes, salads and sauces, butter, quark and mayonnaise, soups, egg dishes, vegetables, and casseroles.
This spice is used in the recipes of the Mediterranean region, India, China, and South America. Here garlic is used in sauces, salsas, and dips.
It is also used in garlic soups, marinades. Garlic oil is recommended for pizza, pasta, carpaccio as it provides an aromatic flavor.
For a better flavor from this spice, dips, dressings, pastes, and sauces should be a bit steep, as the garlic aroma only intensifies with time.
Garlic should not be fried too hot, as it burns easily and then tastes bitter.
Garlic is not always used alone as a spice, it blends well with basil, cumin, coriander, ginger, rosemary, black cumin, thyme, and lemongrass.
Conclusion
Garlic cloves add aroma and flavor to your cooking when they are either pressed through a garlic press or sprinkled with salt and crushed with a knife.
Garlic does not like much heat, it burns and tastes bitter in such condition.
However, if it is used from the beginning of your cooking, it loses its pungency.
The best time for garlic is in spring. Then the cloves taste much milder and juicier than in the rest of the time.
Garlic is both helpful in the maintenance of good taste and also in complementing your cooking.
