The other night when we cooked lamb, I made a vinaigrette of sorts with some fresh rosemary and lemon juice. First, I made some garlic oil. I added some olive oil (I'm addicted to Aldi's organic olive oil) to a cast-iron skillet and thew in a few smashed garlic cloves. I let them just start to brown and then pulled out the pieces of garlic. I added the rosemary, two lemon's worth of lemon juice, and a bit of salt. Oh, and I poured in the pan juices from the lamb. It was heavenly. Nice and garlicky, but the sharpness of the lemon and rosemary pulled it together perfectly. Our dinner was great, but a while after eating my stomach bothered me a bit. I made myself ignore it, but overnight I felt lousy and the next morning my stomach was pissed as hell. The only thing I could think of was that I left some garlic solids in the oil by mistake.
Last night Ernie and Owen were treating themselves to Chinese food. I decided to stick with a salad with some of the leftover lamb. I must say, my salad was gorgeous. One of my standards really…mixed greens, avocado, strawberry, pecans and a bit of olive oil and salt. I added some sliced lamb, and then without thinking about it, used some of the leftover vinaigrette. Right after eating I had the strongest garlic taste in my mouth and immediately started having symptoms (tmi, but bloating, belching, gas, etc.).
Sigh. All I can think is that even though garlic oil (without garlic solids…and nothing added until solids removed) is supposed to be ok for me…it isn't. I could have accidentally left a tiny bit of garlic solid in it, but it's hard to believe that would be enough to do this. It doesn't seem like the lamb could have done it and all the other ingredients are safe ones.
What was it? Do you think the cast iron skillet could be at fault….holding onto tiny little fodmaps?
Well, it was pretty…and damn good, despite the after-effects.
Onward.