What can I do with a lot of garlic?
November 19, 2013 5:59 PM Subscribe
The CSA garlic has been piling up. What sorts of things can I do with quantities of garlic? I think we currently have 10-12 heads of garlic. Bonus points if whatever it is will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or in the freezer for a couple of months. (I found this from previously but maybe there's more!)
Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic is terrific.
posted by xingcat at 6:04 PM on November 19, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by xingcat at 6:04 PM on November 19, 2013 [6 favorites]
Roast all the heads (cut off tops, put each head on a square of tin foil, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper, wrap the heads into foil balls, place on cookie sheet and cook at 375 for an hour, until soft).
Put the foil wrapped balls in a bowl in the fridge, or leave out until cool.
Open cooled (!) foil packets and squeeze all the paste into a bowl. You can sort of just squeeze the heads-the goo should ooze out. Can get messy, but it's messy fun.
Add some glugs of olive oil, more salt and pepper to taste.
Immersion blend if you're obsessed with consistency.
This magic goo is now good for everything-instead of butter in bread, added into recipes all if for garlic. If you cover with oil, it hold last a looog while in the fridge. Also, it freezes in ice cube trays fabulously, although it rarely lasts that long
posted by atomicstone at 6:16 PM on November 19, 2013 [8 favorites]
Put the foil wrapped balls in a bowl in the fridge, or leave out until cool.
Open cooled (!) foil packets and squeeze all the paste into a bowl. You can sort of just squeeze the heads-the goo should ooze out. Can get messy, but it's messy fun.
Add some glugs of olive oil, more salt and pepper to taste.
Immersion blend if you're obsessed with consistency.
This magic goo is now good for everything-instead of butter in bread, added into recipes all if for garlic. If you cover with oil, it hold last a looog while in the fridge. Also, it freezes in ice cube trays fabulously, although it rarely lasts that long
posted by atomicstone at 6:16 PM on November 19, 2013 [8 favorites]
You can peel the coves and preserve them in oil.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:18 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Ideefixe at 6:18 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
I don't have a recipe but I love the sort of bread that has cloves of roasted garlic baked into it.
posted by XMLicious at 6:19 PM on November 19, 2013
posted by XMLicious at 6:19 PM on November 19, 2013
Peel them, stick them in a slow-cooker with olive oil on low for a day or something. Jar the results. Now you have oil-garlic infusion that lasts for ever in the fridge.
posted by pompomtom at 6:21 PM on November 19, 2013
posted by pompomtom at 6:21 PM on November 19, 2013
I loooooove pickled garlic! You really should try it.
posted by Blitz at 6:30 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Blitz at 6:30 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Sunshine soup!
"Holding the warm bowl, the ochre yolk, the light golden broth, it was as if the sun itself had just burst through the window and landed in my hands."
It's simple, warm, and utterly delightful. Hard to go wrong.
posted by RedOrGreen at 6:31 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Holding the warm bowl, the ochre yolk, the light golden broth, it was as if the sun itself had just burst through the window and landed in my hands."
It's simple, warm, and utterly delightful. Hard to go wrong.
posted by RedOrGreen at 6:31 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Garlic olive oil-
Separate the garlic into cloves and peel
(nip the bottom tip mostly off, then peel like a banana to speed up peeling, or whack with the side of a heavy knife/flat mallet)
Spread over the the entire surface of a baking dish
Fill with Olive Oil until just covering the garlic
Cover and Roast in the oven at 300 for at least 45 minutes, up to an hour and a half
The garlic itself will be roasted and delicious. Put it in everything.
The oil will be garlic-y and delicious. Put it on everything.
Oil should last a month.
If you don't finish it before then, use it for cooking only so you cook out harmful stuff.
While I was writing this, pompomtom made a similar recommendation- I've never tried a slowcooker method, but might next time.
posted by LBJustice at 6:33 PM on November 19, 2013
Separate the garlic into cloves and peel
(nip the bottom tip mostly off, then peel like a banana to speed up peeling, or whack with the side of a heavy knife/flat mallet)
Spread over the the entire surface of a baking dish
Fill with Olive Oil until just covering the garlic
Cover and Roast in the oven at 300 for at least 45 minutes, up to an hour and a half
The garlic itself will be roasted and delicious. Put it in everything.
The oil will be garlic-y and delicious. Put it on everything.
Oil should last a month.
If you don't finish it before then, use it for cooking only so you cook out harmful stuff.
While I was writing this, pompomtom made a similar recommendation- I've never tried a slowcooker method, but might next time.
posted by LBJustice at 6:33 PM on November 19, 2013
LBJustice - "Cooking out the harmful stuff" is a fallacy. The "harmful stuff" is the waste products of the bacteria, rather than the bacteria themselves. Cooking will kill bad bacteria, sure, but their harmful waste products will still exist.
posted by mollymayhem at 6:39 PM on November 19, 2013
posted by mollymayhem at 6:39 PM on November 19, 2013
Take atomicstone’s roasted garlic, and puree with butter, fines herbes, smoked paprika, and a little olive oil (perhaps from the roasting) to make the best garlic butter ever (for best results, use a mortar and pestle, though a food processor works as well). Also, since Thanksgiving is coming up use that butter when roasting your turkey and in the mashed potatoes and for buttering your rolls.
Umm…you may want to have a cardiologist on call.
posted by thebestsophist at 6:46 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Umm…you may want to have a cardiologist on call.
posted by thebestsophist at 6:46 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Make different kinds of pesto (basil, tomato, etc.). It'll probably last a while in the fridge (except the tomato variety, that will go bad more quickly) but you can freeze them too). 12 bulbs of garlic should make enough pesto for 2-3 weeks or so, depending on how much you love pesto.
You can use pesto on/in nearly every food, not just pasta. Pesto toast for breakfast? Yes, please. Pesto scrambled tofu? Yes. Pesto-maple salad dressing. Yes. Pesto in place of nearly all condiments? Yes.
posted by mayurasana at 6:47 PM on November 19, 2013
You can use pesto on/in nearly every food, not just pasta. Pesto toast for breakfast? Yes, please. Pesto scrambled tofu? Yes. Pesto-maple salad dressing. Yes. Pesto in place of nearly all condiments? Yes.
posted by mayurasana at 6:47 PM on November 19, 2013
You can use two heads in Yotam Ottolenghi's garlic tart or three in the slightly less healthy revised recipe as it was included in his cookbook. I've only had the less-healthy version, which is one of the best things I've ever eaten. It doesn't keep for super long, but it's so delicious it doesn't matter.
posted by dizziest at 7:05 PM on November 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by dizziest at 7:05 PM on November 19, 2013 [3 favorites]
I also came in here to say Yotam Ottolenghi's garlic tart, as dizziest mentions above. I also felt that it was one of the best things I've ever eaten.
posted by urbanlenny at 7:20 PM on November 19, 2013
posted by urbanlenny at 7:20 PM on November 19, 2013
If you're feeling adventurous, you can pickle it. There are multiple ways, readily googled, but the strangest one I know of comes from this book, which shows you how to preserve it in honey.
posted by koucha at 7:44 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by koucha at 7:44 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
buy some greek olives and stuff them with raw garlic cloves cut to fit. yum.
posted by wildflower at 8:28 PM on November 19, 2013
posted by wildflower at 8:28 PM on November 19, 2013
Peel and refrigerate in a jar. Mince into a paste with olive oil & refrigerate. Make a paste with minced garli, grated ginger and oil - awesome for stir-frys. Make your own hummus.
My current favorite thing is mixing a cup of mayo with 4-5 cloves of minced raw garlic, and using that as an accompaniment to steamed brussel sprouts. It will keep in the fridge for a few days - if it lasts that long.
posted by vignettist at 8:57 PM on November 19, 2013
My current favorite thing is mixing a cup of mayo with 4-5 cloves of minced raw garlic, and using that as an accompaniment to steamed brussel sprouts. It will keep in the fridge for a few days - if it lasts that long.
posted by vignettist at 8:57 PM on November 19, 2013
RedOrGreen's recipe got me inspired to look for more information on that idea, and I came across this one that gives a bit more Provencal ambiance to the recipe, and adds sage and Gruyere cheese. This one's definitely going onto my list of "combat the gray winter blues" dinner ideas.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:11 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:11 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
The oil will be garlic-y and delicious. Put it on everything.
Oil should last a month.
In the freezer, maybe. You might want to reconsider the part about the oil lasting a month if you're not keeping it very cold. This comes up regularly in garlic threads, but Ideefixe's pdf link above points out that storing garlic in oil at room temperature runs the risk of botulism:
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.
But to the question: using 10-12 heads of garlic in a couple of weeks is easy. Roast them and spread the refrigerated (or easily frozen) result on everything you eat - omelets, sandwiches, dissolved in sauces or soups, tossed into hummus, mashed potatoes or pasta salad...the possibilities are endless, and I've had it stay usable in the frig for at least 2 weeks. The Pioneer Woman Cooks has a good recipe for roasting 8 heads at once in a pie pan.
posted by mediareport at 9:48 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Oil should last a month.
In the freezer, maybe. You might want to reconsider the part about the oil lasting a month if you're not keeping it very cold. This comes up regularly in garlic threads, but Ideefixe's pdf link above points out that storing garlic in oil at room temperature runs the risk of botulism:
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.
But to the question: using 10-12 heads of garlic in a couple of weeks is easy. Roast them and spread the refrigerated (or easily frozen) result on everything you eat - omelets, sandwiches, dissolved in sauces or soups, tossed into hummus, mashed potatoes or pasta salad...the possibilities are endless, and I've had it stay usable in the frig for at least 2 weeks. The Pioneer Woman Cooks has a good recipe for roasting 8 heads at once in a pie pan.
posted by mediareport at 9:48 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
I also suggest pickling some. You can put some sliced red onions in as well. Boiling water bath preserving of vinegar-pickled whatever is really easy. Google for instructions, though, and don't improvise on the recipes or processing instructions to be safest.
The cafeteria at work sometimes makes pizza with white sauce, whole garlic cloves, gorgonzola chunks, and X. Where X is usually grapes, though those might be hard to find now. They also do it with roasted chicken. It"s really good. They're individual size and have 6 or 8 cloves plus whatever's in the sauce.
Plus keep in mind that garlic (especially if it's hardneck garlic) will keep in the dark in a cool-ish place (you know--not in the cabinet above the fridge) for quite a while. I've also found that those garlic storage pots actually work pretty well. You could get a larger terra cotta pot and use the drip tray as a loose lid and store more heads at once. You could also get a mesh bag and hang it in your garage if you have one (and it doesn't freeze.)
posted by sevenless at 10:33 PM on November 19, 2013
The cafeteria at work sometimes makes pizza with white sauce, whole garlic cloves, gorgonzola chunks, and X. Where X is usually grapes, though those might be hard to find now. They also do it with roasted chicken. It"s really good. They're individual size and have 6 or 8 cloves plus whatever's in the sauce.
Plus keep in mind that garlic (especially if it's hardneck garlic) will keep in the dark in a cool-ish place (you know--not in the cabinet above the fridge) for quite a while. I've also found that those garlic storage pots actually work pretty well. You could get a larger terra cotta pot and use the drip tray as a loose lid and store more heads at once. You could also get a mesh bag and hang it in your garage if you have one (and it doesn't freeze.)
posted by sevenless at 10:33 PM on November 19, 2013
If you're ambitious you could make black garlic. Here are some instructions if you'd like to try.
If you have a pressure cooker: garlic confit.
posted by O9scar at 10:42 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
If you have a pressure cooker: garlic confit.
posted by O9scar at 10:42 PM on November 19, 2013 [1 favorite]
Slightly odder, but made for freezing and good if you like sweet/savoury combinations: roasted garlic ice cream (I think I posted this link before somewhere, but it wasn't a garlic thread).
posted by gnimmel at 2:39 AM on November 20, 2013
posted by gnimmel at 2:39 AM on November 20, 2013
Bake it! Bake it straight! It's fantastic, and you can spread it on bread, too.
posted by aniola at 1:06 PM on November 20, 2013
posted by aniola at 1:06 PM on November 20, 2013
You don't need a pressure cooker to make garlic confit. And it's sooooo good.
posted by Lexica at 8:40 PM on November 20, 2013
posted by Lexica at 8:40 PM on November 20, 2013
Lots of garlic butter popcorn. Cook garlic in butter. Add popcorn.
posted by aniola at 1:51 PM on November 21, 2013
posted by aniola at 1:51 PM on November 21, 2013
Oh jeez.
Seconding '44-clove garlic soup', aka a 44 clove ticket to a happier place.
Because it is. It's creamy, buttery, garlicky goodness.
posted by Elysum at 6:58 PM on November 21, 2013
Seconding '44-clove garlic soup', aka a 44 clove ticket to a happier place.
Because it is. It's creamy, buttery, garlicky goodness.
posted by Elysum at 6:58 PM on November 21, 2013
Maybe you could try your hand at making kimchi.
posted by vignettist at 8:00 AM on November 26, 2013
posted by vignettist at 8:00 AM on November 26, 2013
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posted by goodbyewaffles at 6:02 PM on November 19, 2013