Toum

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[edit] Garlic sauce as prepared in Lebanon

Part of the Lebanese cuisine.

[edit] How to prepare

[edit] Ingredients

Garlic bulbs and individual cloves, one peeled.

Garlic
Olive Oil
Lemon
salt
Quantities as much as needed.

The sauce is prepared using garlic. The head is divided into cloves that are then peeled. The garlic cloves are smashed using a wooden pestle (see picture), mixed with salt. Salt could be added just at the beginning or after the garlic cloves are well smashed. When the garlic becomes very smooth, olive oil is added gradually and mixed. The mixing is done by stirring the whole in the pestle. One should keep stirring until the whole is very viscous. The olive oil will be sucked by the garlic. Oil is added again, and again stirring until oil disappears. Little by little oil is added and stirred and this way the volume of the sauce grows and its taste gets sweeter. At a certain point lemon juice is added and mixed again until you get the sauce you see in the picture.
One thing to pay attention to, is not to add too much oil on one single time. Oil should be added gradually. The sauce should stick together and stay as viscous as possible. At a certain point one may notice that it's impossible to add more oil without the sauce falling apart. At that moment one can add a little lemon juice, stir for a while, and then continue adding oil and stirring. This makes the sauce stick together.

Do not stop for a long period time between mixing the Oil and the Lemon. While adding the oil it is necessary to keep stirring, stopping only for very brief periods.

The pestle used to prepare the Toum is usually wooden, some new one are made out of synthetic materials, like plastic; occasionally it is carved in stone. Stone carved pestles are usually used for Kebbeh
The method described above is the most genuine way, this is how it's done in most parts of Lebanon.
Note: sometimes, for quicker preparation, (and much cheaper and lousier quality) boiled potato is used, or even mayonnaise. This is one of the worst things one could do to a sauce so natural and healthy as the toum is.