Toum for Garlic Addicts
Toum is Lebanese for 'garlic', but if you order toum in a restaurant, you'll get this garlic paste. Sometimes made with egg white, but not necessarily. I had a go at making toum the traditional way with a mortar and pestle, which turned out tasting alright but not very fluffy, so I decided maybe I'm just not tough enough and tried it the electrical way. I used the small bowl of my food processor (a Kenwood, with only a single speed setting). Well, that worked out super fluffy! It is incredibly easy to make, but don't rush it or you'll ruin it. If you have a machine with more than 1 speed, I'd go for medium fast or just a tad faster, but no need to go at top speed. This is delicious in many ways, my current favorite is to spread it on the inside of a warm pita and stuff the pita with lettuce, coriander, rocket and apple 🙂
Prepared by: Eerainuh
Cuisine: vegan, Libanese
Recipe type: Condiment, life saver, necessity
Prep time:
Total time:
You need
- 2 heads of garlic
- 2 cups of oil (I used rice bran oil, you can also use sunflower oil, it has to be rather tasteless)
- 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
- a generous pinch of salt (Himalayan, in my case, as always)
To do
- peel the garlic and add to the small bowl of your food processor
- add your salt
- run machine for about 20 seconds, scrape sides and repeat
- the moment the garlic sticks to the sides, you can start adding half a cup of oil
- you do this VERY slowly, in a tiny stream. I used the 'funnel', for lack of better word, that comes with the machine and is perfect for this purpose - you'll see the oil and garlic start to become a nice homogenous mass.
- after half a cup, add ½ teaspoon of lemon juice
- start adding oil again very slowly, half a cup, then add lemon juice again
- continue till all is finished.
Notes
This recipe makes about half a liter of fluffy toum. Keep in a container in the fridge.
I loved seeing this recipe here! I’m Lebanese and this is exactly how we make it 🙂
it’s such a pleasure to see one of our staple foods so loved and appreciated 🙂
Hi Doreen! Nice of you to leave a message 🙂 Yes, toum is just lovely and one of the best inventions ever! 😉
we always cover the jar with kitchen roll stop and then cling film stop condensation forming on lid and spoils the toum