Toum (Whipped Garlic Sauce)
Whipped garlic sauce for Mediterranean foods
Adapted from Zaytinya: Delicious Mediterranean Dishes from Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon, by José Andrés
There's really one main rule for making a very good toum: Use the freshest garlic you can find. Look for a firm, tightly packed head of garlic. If you see that green sprouts (germ) have started to form in the clove, save those cloves for another use, and only use garlic without them.
This classic Lebanese sauce is perfect for nearly everything—meat, fish, and vegetables. We always serve it alongside our spicy kebabs and shish taouk, as well as spread on the lavash that wraps our chicken shawarma. When you're making the sauce, chilling the lemon juice and oil, as well as the bowl and the blade of the food processor, helps it emulsify nicely, and so does slowly drizzling in the oil (we prefer canola oil over olive oil for a smoother flavor) and lemon juice. You can keep a jar in the fridge for up to 30 days or so, but know that the garlic flavor will get more and more intense as the days go by—in a week or two, you'll have a super-garlicky sauce!
Ingredients
- 1 cup garlic cloves (10 to 15, depending on size), peeled
- 2½ teaspoons kosher salt
- 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon), chilled, divided
- 2 cups canola oil, chilled
Instructions
- Put the garlic into the bowl of a small (3- to 9-cup) food processor, then add the salt and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice. Pulse to mix. Then, with the motor running, slowly trickle in 1 cup of the oil. Be patient and take your time, or the sauce will not emulsify. A fluffy, light, white paste should start forming within 1 minute; keep slowly drizzling in the oil over the course of about 4 minutes.
- Turn off the motor, scrape down the sides of the bowl, then turn the motor on again and drizzle in the remaining 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, followed by the remaining 1 cup of oil. The whole process will take 7 to 8 minutes.
- Scrape into a container and let sit uncovered at room temperature to cool. Keep the sauce refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a month.
Notes
- You could use garlic mayo (with lemon juice) for a quicker alternative