I never used to use fresh garlic (just a pain to peel and mince).
Well, I’ve started trying to use it more (and bought a press), but I really have no working point on how much is too much.
For instance, I’m making a box of rice, and decided to spice it up with some garlic.
Would 3 cloves be too much?
I love the taste of onion, so I figure I’m probably happier on the heavier end.
It all depends on your tastes. For some people, there’s no such thing as “too much garlic.” I love garlic, but I’m not one of those people, unless I’m making something where garlic is supposed to be the focus. For a box of rice, a finely minced clove is usually enough for me. Two if I’m feeling particularly in a garlic mood. Three is a bit much, IMHO, but YMMV.
D’oh! :smack:
If you like garlic, I think you’ll be fine with the three. I’m sure there’s people who’d throw a whole head in there if you gave them a choice.
It actually wasn’t bad at all, though a bit sweet in a way.
I think I’d use two next time, and less onion (I used 3/4 of a large yellow onion).
It depends not only on your taste but how you prepare it, cook it, etc - a clove of finely minced or pressed raw garlic will be much more pungent than a whole roasted clove for example.
That’s the key. You have to be careful with raw (or sauteed garlic) but the more it’s cooked, the more you can use. The earlier you toss it in to a recipe, the less pungent it gets (similar to an onion). If it’s roasted you literally (more or less) can’t use too much. Once it’s roasted you can eat it straight out of the peel, use it like butter etc, since it won’t have any pungency left at all.
If you look at a Chicken with 40 Cloves type recipe (works out to about three heads) they’ll end up simmering the garlic for about an hour. When I make stew, I’ll toss whole cloves in and they’ll cook with the stew for a few hours. Both of these methods, due to their long, low cooking time will also take the pungency out to the point that you can eat the clove without even realizing it’s garlic.
If you give garlic cloves a smash, the skins slip right off. If you give it a big smash, it’s very easy to mince. I hate cleaning garlic presses.
Speaking from personal experience, I can say that using a bulb instead of a clove in a recipe is too much garlic.
How much happiness is too much? How much love?
I usually double the recommended amount of garlic in any recipe. I am Korean, though - there is no such thing as too much garlic for us. 
I understand all the words in the OP but strung together they make no sense.
There is no such thing as too much garlic*
*For me, YMMV
I use a whole bulb in my hummus, but I roast it first, so it isn’t as sharp.
Try roasting it. It’s amazing.
I have the lazy person’s garlic roaster, the Roasted Garlic Express. It looks like something you’d see in a Ron Popeil infomercial, but it works great for me.
I love garlic. I love garlic so much that when I was little I popped a raw clove into my mouth, thinking it’d fill it with the strong, creamy garlicky taste I loved.
I was wrong. That was too much garlic.
I still go heavy on the garlic, raw/cooked or powered garlic. It’s when I drink something afterwards and it leaves a burning sensation in my mouth that I realize that I’ve gone too heavy on the garlic.
My gf and I make baked chicken with about 5 of the big chicken breasts, 3 or so largish yellow onions and 5 “heads” of garlic (not sure which is a clove and which is a bulb). The house smells of garlic for days. We use a lot on pork and pasta sauce too. I don’t think too many people like garlic that much but we love it!
I’ve been enjoying the smell of garlic on my finger tips all night.
Yum!
The clove is the smaller unit that breaks away from the others on the bulb, the bulb is all the cloves together.
There was a letter to either Dear Abby or Dear Ann Landers many years ago from someone begging the advice author to somehow convince the writer’s sister that a garlic bulb was not a garlic clove. The misguided chef had been using that much garlic in her dishes for so long that it tasted fine to her, and none of her friends and relatives were able to convince her she was wrong.
Moral: there is no amount of garlic that somebody can’t get used to, especially if they gradually increase the dosage. Flip side: it’s perfectly healthy–if you’re only cooking for yourself, keep adding & tasting until you decide there’s enough. Just don’t keep cooking that way on dishes you plan to share!