Turns out, the scientists are nearly as stumped as we were when it comes to blue garlic. As far as they can tell, garlic enzymes—which give it that distinct flavor—break down over time. Naturally occurring sulfur in the garlic interacts with those enzymes, occasionally turning it slightly green or blue.
The excess water content will always promote bacterial growth , which often results in color transformations or similar issues. If you use a rotten piece of any of these ingredients, it might promote bacterial growth in your paste. Also, there is no way to fix this issue if you have already used such pieces for the preparations. Similar to the pickles, you should not use a wet spoon or similar tool to remove the paste from your container. As mentioned in the first point above, water content or moisture is the leading cause of turning your paste green or blue.
If you like to use this paste for several dishes every day, there is a chance that you might open its container multiple times. Well, when you open the container on multiple occasions, it allows the air and moisture to enter into the empty space inside the container. Once these two elements enter in the container, the storage life of your paste decreases significantly. For Ginger-Garlic paste or any similar ingredients, you will need a specific room temperature for a better shelf life. Turns out that the reactions that create this blue pigment are related to the reactions that create the familiar pungent aroma of garlic and onions.
The chemical precursors of these compounds start out safely locked away within individual cells in the plant, but as you cut or grate them, they get exposed to each other, where they end up reacting, with the aid of anzymes. According to this New York Times article from Harold McGee , under certain conditions, the chemical precursors will "react with each other and with common amino acids to make pyrroeles, clusters of carbon-nitrogen rings.
The molecules are perfectly safe to eat. So why does some garlic turn green and others not? It has to do with the garlic's age. Older garlic will build up larger quantities of chemical precursors than fresher garlic, thus both the region in which you buy your garlic and the specific markets in which you are purchasing it can affect how likely it is to form these blue-green compounds.
Since the colored compounds are created from the same chemical precursors as aromatic compounds, your perception that garlic that turns green has a stronger flavor than garlic that stays white is spot on. Indeed, level of greenness is almost a direct litmus test for how strong your garlic will taste.
McGee notes that in some parts of the world, the color is specifically accentuated by cooking the garlic in acid low pH environments are more conducive to the reaction occurring. I want to avoid canola oil but am wondering what oils are traditionally used in Indian cooking?
Hi Camille, I use coconut oil for my regular cooking. So I use the same. I have also used peanut, sesame and sunflower oils before. In Indian each region uses different cooking oils. Hello Swasthi, The Bhatti da Murgh recipe I made called for 2 tablespoons of grated garlic and 2 tablespoons of grated ginger. I substituted 4 tablespoons of your paste to save time and the finished chicken, which also cooked with about 10 other Indian spices, did not taste very good to me.
I have cooked many Indian dishes in the past, and have never had this problem. Do you think the quantity of paste overwhelmed the other ingredients? Hi, Yes you used a lot of ginger garlic paste. It is the same for ginger too. I guess 1. Thank you for the helpful reply. For the remaining chicken, maybe some extra yogurt during reheating will reduce the strong paste error.
You are welcome. To reduce the strong flavor of ginger garlic, you can add some almond flour or gram flour. While making marinade any minor mistakes can be rectified to some extent by adding flour, cream or yes yogurt as you said. Give me more details of preserving both. I want to make ginger garlic paste but I think it is possible that I may need another type of garlic. Ginger from USA supermarkets seems to have a lot of fiber. Is that ok?
Or do I need young tender garlic. If so how do I get that? Grow it myself or go to an Asian market? Hi Eileen You can use any kind of less fibrous ginger.
The ginger garlic paste will still be good even when made with fibrous ginger but you may not like the fibers in your curries.
Give a try with whatever you have and then for the next time you can decide. I just buy what every is available in the market. Can we use organic ginger without peeling the skin of ginger? I mean can we wash pre-mince and then let it get dried up. Later chop and put it in a blender along with garlic?
Will that ginger garlic have good shelf life? Will that have difference in taste from the one made with peeled ginger? Hi Sireesha, my mom never removes the skin. She scrubs with a tiny brush, rinses it well, air dries it on the table for over night and makes the paste. I have seen it stays really good for about a month.
But for me this never works as it makes the entire paste bitter. Sometimes the skin of ginger makes the entire thing very pungent and bitter. Not sure why. I think you should try with a small quantity. Very good explanation.. Swasthi — love your blog for the details you give. My ginger garlic always would turn green after a few days. Your tips helped a lot. Welcome Rachel, Hybrid ginger is Genetically modified ginger. You can make out by the appearance if you take a look at the non gmo variety.
Usually Gmodified ginger is larger in size and more whitish or pale, more juicy and less pungent. Hi, May be you can look for a dehydrator online. You can dehydrate the ginger garlic for sometime to reduce the moisture and then blend them.
Store with enough oil. Even a oven should work if you heat up at low temperature — 40 to 60 C. I do it for my pickles in oven and it works.
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