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Puree of Garlic

A smooth garlic puree flavored with butter, salt, red pepper, and reduced Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,090 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Puree of Garlic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the garlic

  1. Peel the garlic bulbs and parboil them in plenty of lightly salted water until cooked.

  2. Drain the garlic and place it in a saucepan with butter.

  3. Set the saucepan over medium heat to reduce moisture.

Make the puree

  1. Season the puree with salt and red pepper.

  2. Rub the seasoned puree through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the puree to the saucepan.

  4. Add a few spoonfuls of reduced Espagnole sauce.

  5. Before serving, stir in a piece of butter.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Garlic + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,007 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Garlic + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,572 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Garlic bulbs
Provide the main flavour and, once cooked and pureed, the body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the puree.
Reduced espagnole sauce
Adds depth and body to the puree as a concentrated sauce base.

The step that matters

Rub the seasoned puree through a fine sieve. Pressing cooked garlic through a fine sieve breaks down fibres and removes skins and lumps, which gives the smooth texture the puree depends on. Skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse, grainy result.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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