Oil + Garlic = Free Botox!

April 8, 2009 11:54 AM

[(50 Garlics + 3/4 teacup of Olive Oil) * Food Processor] + Long Term Storage = Botulism? If yes, what could be used to replace the oil?

My mother makes a 'paste' of garlic with some olive oil. Basically, she takes 50 heads of garlic, mix them with 3/4 of a teacup of olive oil and puts the mixture into a food processor. After that, she stores the resulting puree it into small glass jars and then stores them in the fridge, being the last jar consumed 4 or 5 months later.

The information in the internet about botulism is more about garlic stored in oil (which, I guess, involve a lot more oil than what my mother uses) so I'm not sure if it applies to this paste or not.

Of course, after finding out about the involved "risk", she has decided to make another batch, this time using something else instead of oil. The question is, what would work? Vegetable shortening?

Thanks.

posted by Memo to food & drink (11 comments total)

Personally, I don't think the risk there is great enough to worry about, but I realize that's not your question. A way to reduce the risk but maintain her ingredients would be to store the puree in the freezer instead of the fridge.

If she wants to avoid the oil, I would recommend just whizzing up the garlic on it's own, and again storing it in the freezer rather than the fridge. The risk comes from adding the oil, which creates a low-acid low-oxygen environment, where the bacterium that creates the toxin can thrive. Vegetable shortening is oil, just hydrogenated, and thus solid at room temperature.
posted by amelioration at 12:10 PM on April 8

I would just store it in the freezer and thaw out one jar at a time.
posted by thejanna at 12:15 PM on April 8

The usual way to make garlic-in-oil safe is to make it acidic, which inhibits bacterial growth, and then to pressure-can it, which kills off any bacteria already in it and makes it harder for more to get in. You'll find garlic in oil in the supermarket in those babyfood-style jars with the pop-up pressurized lids, and you'll notice the ingredient list tends to include citric acid.

But pressure canning is a pain in the ass. I think thejanna's right — freeze it. Even better than freezing whole jars, since you probably won't go through a jar all at once, freeze it in an ice cube tray, and then pop a cube at a time into what you're cooking.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:19 PM on April 8

4thing freezing
posted by Jupiter Jones at 12:26 PM on April 8

Freeze, freeze, freeze. If you need a definitive explanation, contact the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

In the meantime, read this:

"Extreme care must be taken when preparing flavored
oils with garlic or when storing garlic in
oil. Peeled garlic cloves may be submerged in oil
and stored in the freezer for several months. Do
not store garlic in oil at room temperature.
Garlic-in-oil mixtures stored at room temperature
provide perfect conditions for producing botulism
toxin (low acidity, no free oxygen in the oil,
and warm temperatures). The same hazard exists
for roasted garlic stored in oil. At least three outbreaks
of botulism associated with garlic-in-oil
mixtures have been reported in North America.
By law, commercially prepared garlic in oil
has been prepared using strict guidelines and
must contain citric or phosphoric acid to increase
the acidity. Unfortunately, there is no easy or
reliable method to acidify garlic in the home.
Acidifying garlic in vinegar is a lengthy and
highly variable process; a whole clove of garlic
covered with vinegar can take from 3 days to
more than 1 week to sufficiently acidify. As an
alternative, properly prepared dried garlic cloves
may be safely added to flavor oils."
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:24 PM on April 8

Freeze it. Add two cups of fresh basil and a cup of pine nuts while you're at it.

Mmm.... pesto.
posted by rokusan at 2:49 PM on April 8

In the US 110 people a year get botulism. If you cut out infant botulism and wound botulism the number is 28. That is 0.000009% of the population in the US.

I would say don't worry about it. If you are worried just freeze it, or make smaller batches.
posted by gregr at 3:02 PM on April 8

Put it in a zip lock bag. Squeeze out all the air, so the bag is quite flat, and pretty thin. When you need some, you can just break off a piece. Bonus: It stacks in the freezer.
posted by theora55 at 5:33 PM on April 8

bad shit happens.

i know this because...

we lived across the street from a garlic de-shelling (or whatever it's called...dehusking? decloving?) facility. one day they left all of us neighbors tons of free garlic cloves if we wanted them. I thought it would be swell to store it all using the recipe described in the OP's question. And that's when bad shit happened. We went on vacation for a week to come home and find two of the jars had exploded and showered rancid, horrible-smelling substance all over everything. We had also given a few jars to friends and they told us the lids had blown off, pungent ooze had leaked out, etc.

So we learned our lesson, and upon further research, learned you should pickle the garlic before storing in oil.

Here's more information on storing garlic.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 12:18 AM on April 9

I've been told about freezing pureed garlic in ice cube trays before, no need for oil and it's in usefully sized portions when you need it.

(As I see has been mentioned above)
posted by knapah at 4:15 PM on April 9

I'm surprised about the answers considering how AskMeFi tends to be about food.

She's going to freeze it, thanks everyone!
posted by Memo at 12:51 PM on April 25