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Many, many years ago, my spouse was going to be on bed rest following surgery for a few weeks. I received a few recipes to make. One of them was a blue cheese soup that called for two cloves of garlic.
I had, in fact, cooked before – but sleep deprived me read the label on the back that said “garlic cloves” and contained three items. It took so long to remove the skin and put it through the garlic press, but I love my spouse, so I did it. I tasted it while cooking and thought it was great.
One bite in: “Honey, did you put in two cloves of garlic or two bulbs?”
On the plus side, I got all the leftovers.
FYI, a big single clove like this is a sign it was harvested too early and it won’t have as strong a garlic flavor.
Or it’s a larger, mild garlic variety like Elephant Garlic. The pic looks quite similar to what my dad grows.
Close, this is solo garlic, which is botanically the same as regular garlic but grown in a warmer climate that prevents the cloves from splitting.
Solo garlic is planted in the late spring/early summer and harvested late summer.
Regular garlic is planted in the fall and allowed to over-winter then harvested around mid-summer.
The clove forming process is triggered by reaching enough time at cool enough temperature. 50-60 days below 10C or 30-40days under 4C for most cultivars. There is some variation based upon genetics.
I process garlic into a paste with lots of olive oil and a touch of lemon juice to keep it from going fluorescent green too fast.
I do an entire 1Kg bag of garlic at a time. The garlic paste rarely lasts more than a month, and frequently fails to last the month. In fact, when I make Cæsar Salad, using an entire head of Romaine, I usually use a good 4 heaping soup spoons - at least 300ml if not more - in that single salad.
The fun bit is that my stomach has begun bioreacting garlic. I have to restrict my salads to days I don’t head out, least I drop munitions on the general public every minute or three. And not silent ones, either… nooooooo, we’re talking 10-20s long buzz bombs, like the world’s biggest whoopie cushion.
A comment about food and farts. You know your audience well.
Some use Garlic as a spice. For others, it’s a vegetable.
A good rule of thumb if that if there are onions in the recipe you can add garlic.
Another good rule of the thumb is there shouldn’t be a lot of recipes (that isn’t like a dessert) without onions.
I’m sadly allergic to alliums. Onions, garlic, shallots: you name it, it wrecks my guts. The massive downside, beyond how they’re in everything, is my partner stopped eating them too and couldn’t stand them except in small amounts. They lost their tolerance for the flavor, so anything with a normal amount of onions tasted overpowering. I experience the same, so at least I immediately know if something has alliums in it.
When I was little, I hated onions.
Nkw that I’m an adult and outgrew many of my childhood dislikes, I can confidently say that the onion is the devil’s root and should stay in the ground.
Fun fact: Most store bought garlic has been dried for a month in a temperature controlled darkened warehouse before being sent off for sale.
Funner fact: garlic is easy af to grow
Haven’t bought garlic in years
And the greens are super tasty, too!
It’s really easy:
- When it sprouts because you’ve forgotten to use it
- Separate the good cloves from the moldy ones
- Plant the good cloves in the garlic flower bed
- Forget to harvest the garlic
- Buy more garlic and put it in the cupboard
Repeat as necessary
I’m in PNW
Plant in October’sh, as late as November. Sprouted side down, it’s the root that’s sprouting.
No fuss. Depending on where u live no need to water until May or June. Let the fall rain and winter handle it.
Eat scapes in late June. Harvest, braid & cure in July.
Wash rinse repeat.
I do this, but potatoes.
I have this one recipe that calls for half a clove of garlic…
