Once I was making soup with a friend and the recipe called for a few cloves of garlic. She was ready to throw the garlic cloves into the soup whole without chopping them up first. I would've thought that it would make more sense to chop it up first and she had never heard of doing that.
Does anyone ever cook with whole garlic cloves? My friend's parents are from Spain so perhaps in other countries this is a common way to include garlic in a recipe.
Best Answer
From my experience and what I've seen, garlic cloves are often applied to soup in un-chopped glove.
Overtime, the boiling will release the garlic's sweet to the soup without melting itself into the liquid or dissolving into tidbits that attached to the ingredients.
I have also seen people pan fry the garlic gloves to golden brown before dumping them into the water. I believe the purpose is to harden the outside of the garlic while getting more exotic flavor out of it.
Otherwise, I would chop/dice/smash garlic for dips and frying.