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I think this is a mutant clove. I am no garlic weakling--I usually start at four or five cloves for whatever I'm eating-- and I often use raw in dressings and dips--this is just way too raw tasting. There are also two heads of roasted garlic in the sauce--but those are just sweet and mellow. I'm completely baffled at why my palate can't take this one wee clove.

@bananamonkey - i know what you mean, sometimes you get garlic that is really HOT. it that it? in that case it would simply overpower everything. especially in a salad dressing. could you use this as a slather on top of baked salmon or something?

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the "hot" caused by a chemical reaction? Like horseradish? Which is why you get varying degrees of strength depending on whether you've sliced the garlic ir smashed it to smithereens.

If that's the case, it may mellow a bit on its own if you let it sit overnight. I wonder if there's something else that might mellow the chemical reaction without adding strange tastes...

If you have a particularly harsh clove of garlic there's not much you can do. The problem is that none of the chemical volatility can escape your creamy saucitude and mellow out. I for good reason always avoid mixing roasted and raw garlic. If I want something stronger I won't roast the garlic as fully and leave the cloves a bit firmer.

I suspect that the of the two reactive chemicals in garlic, one persists in roasted garlic and what you had was a raw clove with a lot of the other. BAM you regarlictized your roasted garlic.

Hmmm can regarlictized be a real word? :p

I've heard you can add a raw potato to combat a dish that's over-salted... perhaps cut up a potato and let it absorb some of the garlic? (then I'd tewtally proceed to roast or fry the badboy heck outta that garlic-infused potato! :)

Thanks all for your advice. I am perhaps too in love with my microplane zester. It did occur to me that I'd never microplaned and eaten raw garlic before---always just did it straight into a cooking pot, where the heat can temper it a bit.

also, @Seina--I love love love your made up words. 'saucitude' and 'regarlictized' are perfectly totally evocative and...perfectly cromulent. I do it all the time.

Without a doubt the microplane is the culprit. The "hot" flavor in garlic is produced when its cells are ruptured and exposed to air. You'd be hard pressed to invent a more efficient device for accomplishing this. One thing that may work is to put the whole batch in the blender with some parsley and/or lemon juice. You'll often find one or both paired with garlic because they mitigate that unpleasant rawness.