Rebecca’s Recipe of the Week: A Garlic Sauce that Improves Everything (Including Christmas Leftovers. . . ) | Canalside Community Food

This is a version of a Lebanese sauce called toum. Toum is essentially a eggless mayonnaise, in which the garlic magically emulsifies the oil to produce a thick, creamy sauce that is good on everything from roasted squash to chicken shawarma. You can also use it as a dip—or make a post-Christmas sandwich by spreading toum on some toast, and toping with avocado and leftover sliced turkey.
Traditional toum uses raw garlic; for this one you simmer the garlic in milk, which gives a mellower, more complex flavour.

Toum
serves 4
Just reminding you: 1 cup is 8 fluid ounces measured in a measuring jug, so half a cup is 4 fluid ounces…

Ingredients
½ cup peeled garlic cloves
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
½ cup olive oil
pepper, to taste.

Preparation
Put the garlic cloves and milk in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, over low heat. Simmer over very low heat (you could use a heat diffuser if you have one) for between 40 and 90 minutes, or until the garlic is very tender and has absorbed much of the milk. Remove from the heat and leave to cool a bit.

Put the cooled garlic and milk in a blender along with the lemon juice and salt, and whizz it up.

Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, in a steady stream, until the sauce is thickened and looks for all the world like mayonnaise. Season to taste with additional salt, and perhaps some pepper if you wish. Drizzle over anything.

Recipe adapted from Ana Sortun and Maura Kilpatrick, Soframiz: Vibrant Middle Eastern Recipes from Sofra Bakery & Café (2016).