Reference point
Fry a spoonful of minced garlic in oil until golden, and smell the steam rising.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Sweet, fatty, with a roasted-nut note and almost none of the pungency of raw garlic left.
That is the point of this entry: raw garlic and fried garlic are two different smells, not two strengths of one smell. Heat destroys the old structure and builds a new one.
The line between golden and burnt is very narrow. A few seconds too long and it turns bitter, with no way back.
How to smell it
Smell raw minced garlic first, then fry it and smell again at three moments: as it goes into the oil, as it turns golden, and just after it goes too far. Three clearly different smells in under two minutes.
Why this one is hard
Because it is so familiar and always comes with hot oil. Separating the garlic from the oil takes deliberate attention.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Fried garlic
Spicy family
Fried garlic is sweet with a roasted-nut note; fried shallots are softer, with the sweetness of caramel. Garlic is sharper in the first second.
Scientific note
Raw garlic contains odourless alliin; when the cells break, the enzyme alliinase converts it into allicin — the pungent compound. Heat destroys the enzyme and breaks allicin down into disulphides and polysulphides with a sweet, fatty smell. So fried garlic is not weakened raw garlic but an entirely different product.
In Vietnamese life
Fried garlic is scattered over almost every Vietnamese dish: rice porridge, steamed rice rolls, hủ tiếu noodle soup, sticky rice. In the south a jar of ready-fried garlic is a default kitchen item, and its quality is judged by an even golden colour rather than by crispness.