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Ragout of Garlic, Mild
Garlic is not universally liked, probably owing to its strong savour and smell. Those who are fond of it, however, are generally very partial to it, and these persons will welcome it simply boiled till tender, without sauce or gravy, and served in the same dish with roast mutton. When thus served, its flavour and smell will be rendered much milder if the water in which it is boiled be changed every five or ten minutes until it is done enough, and the more frequent these changes are the milder the garlic will be. Instead of serving it dry with the mutton, the garlic may be put into good brown gravy or white sauce, and poured over the meat. Time to boil the garlic, half an hour.
A blanching method rather than a true ragout: repeated changes of boiling water strip out garlic's pungent sulphur compounds and leave something sweet and mild enough to eat as a vegetable.
- The hinge: change the water oftenThe recipe credits the mildness to repeated blanching. Each fresh change of boiling water carries off more of the volatile sulphur compounds, and the original's "every five or ten minutes" implies three to six changes over the half hour; it states outright that the more frequent the changes, the milder the garlic.
- What form of garlicThe original does not say, and it matters. Peeled whole cloves are the sensible reading; large cloves are more likely to hold their shape, while small ones may collapse before thirty minutes.
- TimingHalf an hour is on the long side. Peeled cloves may be tender in 15 to 20 minutes; test with a knife tip and stop when they yield, or you will have garlic purée rather than a garnish.
- Quantity and yieldNo amount is given. Reckon three or four fat cloves per person as a side vegetable, which for four people means two or three heads.
- Brown gravy or white sauceIn period usage brown gravy generally means meat juices or stock thickened with browned flour, and white sauce a plain flour-and-milk sauce. Either will carry the blanched cloves well, but add them at the end so they do not break up.
- MuttonMature mutton is scarce outside specialist butchers. A shoulder or leg of lamb takes the same treatment, though it is milder and needs less garlic to balance it.
- Keep the blanching water off the sauceThe point of the changes is to discard the flavour, so do not be tempted to use any of that liquid as stock.
The recipe is written for a British readership that regarded garlic with suspicion — the note that it is "not universally liked" was an understatement in a cuisine where a cook was often told to rub a bare hint of it round the salad bowl and no more. Treating garlic as a vegetable in its own right, boiled tender and served alongside roast meat, was familiar in southern France, Spain and parts of the Mediterranean, and English cookery writers of the period tended to present it as a curiosity for enthusiasts rather than as everyday fare. The repeated change of water is an old trick, and boiling does break down the compounds responsible for garlic's bite, which is why long-cooked garlic tastes sweeter and milder than raw. The label "ragout" is loose here — it signals only that the vegetable may be finished in a sauce.