How to Soak Garlic

Regardless of how you store fresh garlic, after a while garlic will dry out and spoil. So, let’s soak garlic for longer storage. Pickled garlic will have its own flavor slightly different from fresh garlic but still retain the characteristic flavor of garlic. Whether you are a garlic addict or just want to use garlic to ward off evil spirits, you can still make a simple garlic soak as shown in this article.

Table of Contents

Ingredient

Basic Ingredients

0.5 kg of dried garlic
300 ml white wine vinegar (can be substituted with apple cider vinegar)
170 ml of water
1 tablespoon table salt or pickling salt (fine salt will make the pickling water cloudy)
4 chili peppers (optional, use soaked as possible)
Half a lemon
4 bottles with a capacity of 500 ml

Ingredients for Soaking

2 tablespoons mustard seeds
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon cloves
1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds
4 sprigs of thyme
4 bay leaves

Prepare the Soak and Garlic Solution

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Prepare the jars for soaking. Before you begin, you need to make sure that the jars used for soaking are clean. Just a small stain can ruin the whole pickled garlic, so you need to sterilize the bottle properly. After sterilizing, place the bottles on a clean towel on the counter to dry.

Probably the easiest way to sterilize is to wash the jars and lids in the dishwasher on “sterilize” mode. If you don’t have a dishwasher or a dishwasher that doesn’t have a sterilizer function, place the jars and lids in boiling water for 10 minutes to sterilize.
You should use clean tongs or bottle tongs so that if you need to touch the sterilized bottle. Because bacteria can get in when our hands touch the jars and lids.
You should not use old jam or marshmallow jars to make pickling jars, as they may not preserve food properly. Instead, choose a jar with an airtight lid. If you still want to use the old jam jar, you will always need to keep the pickled garlic in the refrigerator and use it within 3 months.

Place the clean jar in a saucepan over low heat. You can wait for the jar to heat up while preparing the garlic and the pickling method.

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Peel the garlic. If you have to peel a large amount of garlic then you will feel depressed. Want to find a way to peel garlic effectively? There are two basic ways to help you peel a lot of garlic at once:

Shake the garlic vigorously . Separate the garlic bulb into small cloves and place in a metal bowl. Turn another metal bowl of the same size upside down over the first to seal. Then, hold firmly with both hands and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. The garlic peel will pop out!
Blanch garlic . Put the garlic cloves in boiling water to soak for 30 seconds. Remove the garlic and immediately put it in cold water to reduce the temperature. You will peel the garlic right in the water. The shell will now slide off easily after being blanched.

Prepare the soaking solution. You will mix water, vinegar, and salt in a pot and simmer. Remember to stir until the salt dissolves.

It is recommended to use pots made of stainless steel, Teflon, porcelain or glass. Do not use a copper pot as too much copper in the water can cause the garlic to turn green or blue.

Soak Garlic

Put the seasoning and coriander you want in the jar. Four jars with airtight lids of 500 ml capacity can hold 0.5 kg of garlic. In each jar, you will put 1/4 of the spice along with a sprig of thyme and 1 bay leaf.

Divide the garlic evenly into the jar. Be careful not to overfill – all the garlic needs to be completely submerged in the water.

Pour enough garlic soaking solution into each jar, then add a slice of lemon to the face to keep the garlic in the solution. ^{[1] X Source of Study} Wipe off any remaining soaking solution from the mouth of the vial. Close the lid tightly but do not close it too tightly. The heating and cooling process will make the jar airtight.

Boil the pickled garlic. Increase the temperature of the pot to bring the water to a boil. Put the jar of soaked garlic in the pot with a bottle tongs.

Add boiling water to the pot if necessary to raise the water level to 2.5 cm, level with the mouth of the jar.
Place the jar on a metal tray at the bottom of the cooking pot. Because the jar can break when receiving heat directly from the bottom of the pot.

Place the jar in the saucepan over low heat for about 15 minutes. The process of heating and then lowering the temperature creates a vacuum lock at the mouth of the jar, which helps preserve the garlic.

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Remove the vial from the boiling water and reduce the temperature completely. You should be careful not to tilt the vial when taking it out. Make sure the vial is properly sealed by following these tips:

After the vial has cooled, press down on the center of the vial cap to see if the cap is indented. If so, it has not been properly sealed.
Reheat unsealed jars of pickled garlic if you can’t eat them all right away. Use the new cap to close the jar and continue cooking for another 15 minutes.

Advice

Pickled garlic may turn blue or green if the garlic is not ripe or dry enough. Red-skinned garlic can also turn blue or green when soaked. The fact that the garlic changes color does not mean that the garlic has gone bad and the garlic can still be eaten.

Warning

If after you have heated the jar of garlic and when you open the lid, you do not hear a hissing sound from the vacuum at the mouth of the jar, do not eat the food in the jar. This means that the food has not been soaked properly and can cause poisoning.