Leave the papery skin on when roasting garlic.
Roasted garlic has a milder flavor than fresh garlic and is a delicious addition to pasta sauces, soups and potato dishes. Its softness and creamy texture makes it ideal for spreads and dips such as hummus, and you can even enjoy it by itself, just spread on bread. You can make your own roasted garlic at home using olive oil, foil and an oven or barbecue. You can roast just a few cloves at a time, or several bulbs at once.
Instructions
Oven Roasting
1. Tear off a sheet of foil and lay it flat on your work surface. The size of the sheet depends on how much garlic you are roasting. For a whole bulb of garlic, about 10 cloves, a dinner plate-sized sheet will do.
2. Break as many cloves of garlic as desired off the bulb, leaving the papery skin on. Cut off any sprouts from the tips of the garlic.
3. Pour a tablespoon of olive oil into the palm of your hand. Pick up the garlic cloves and coat them in oil by rubbing them in your hands. Each clove should be well coated.
4. Arrange the cloves on the foil so they are not touching one another. Make a pouch with the foil by bringing all the edges of the foil together at the top and pinching them shut. The idea is to trap the heat inside this pouch, helping the garlic cook more thoroughly.
5. Place the foil pouch in the center of an oven set at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 60 minutes.
6. Remove the pouch from the oven and carefully open it as there may be very hot air trapped inside. The garlic cloves should be a light brown color. When they are cool enough to touch, pinch the bottom of the clove and squeeze. The cloves should slide out of the skin and are now ready to use.
Barbecue Roasting
7. Roasting whole garlic in the barbecue creates lots of roasted garlic.
Coat whole bulbs of garlic with olive oil.
8. Wrap the bulbs tightly in foil. Make sure there are no openings or rips in the foil. You may want to use more than one layer of foil.
9. Bury the garlic in the coals left in a barbecue after you've had the barbecue running for 60 minutes. The residual heat from the coals will roast the garlic slowly and evenly.
10. Remove the foil, then cut off the top of the whole bulb of garlic and squeeze out the roasted cloves.
Tags: bulb garlic, cloves should, garlic cloves, papery skin, whole bulb, whole bulb garlic