Thoom - Arabic Garlic Sauce Recipe - Food.com (2024)

• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 head garlic, cleaned
• 1 egg white (optional)
• ¹⁄₈ cup lemon juice, plus
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• water
• salt

directions

• Use a blender as the well on a food processor is too big for this. Try a wand blender, I havent, but if you have a strong one, I bet it's just the ticket.
• Drop into the blender: cleaned garlic, egg-white and a few teaspoons oil. Blend and add remaining oil by the teaspoon whilst continually blending. Expect to spend a little time now, dribbling in the canola oil (don't break the sauce!).
• You are creating an emulsion, like mayonnaise. At first it will look runny, but keep dripping the oil in gradually, and it will begin to thicken when about 1/3 - 1/2 cup is blended. Make it as stiff or as relaxed as you like, but if you add oil or lemon too much at a time, it will separate into plain oil & puree'd garlic, not an emulsion.
• If the emulsion is too thick to blend, dilute it with the lemon-juice and later w/ water (when you have the level of flavor you want from the lemon but you want to thin the sauce). Conversely, thicken it by adding more oil -- I have scared myself w/ an emulsion that was very fluid till I realized I had added too much lemon juice. So, more garlic, more oil, more blending and voila, problem solved.
• I like to keep this quite stiff as I use it like mayo, but it's harder to blend that way: it gets so thick you have to use a spatula to knock down the top so it will keep blending.
• When most of the oil is emulsified, salt to taste.
• I have seen Americanized versions of this sauce calling for everything from yogurt to mashed potatoes(!) You not need a dairy product in this. Or potatoes, lol!
• Made this way, this will keep a long time, like mayo (the egg is optional). If it's too garlicky for you, add another 1/2 C oil like you did the first cup. This is the real deal, promise!