Tag: roasted garlic

Garlic Confit

garlic confit - trustinkim

Garlic confit is simply garlic that has been slow-cooked in olive oil – but it is also magical! It can be added to pizza, vegetable, soup and so many other foods, and the garlic-infused oil can be added to salad dressing or used for roasting.

I made up a batch recently and I’m quickly making my way through the jar of garlic, which has a lovely mellow roasted flavour. So good!

What you need:

  • a few bulbs of garlic
  • olive oil

What you do:

  1. The most labour-intensive part of this recipe, peel the garlic cloves. Mine had the green “germ” growing inside, so I cut the cloves in half to remove it. I think it adds a bitter taste.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200F.
  3. Place the peeled cloves in a dish and pour in some olive oil, until all the cloves are covered. Use tin foil to cover the container, then place it in the oven for about 2 hours.
  4. Remove the container from the oven and let it cool. Pour into a jar and store in the fridge. It should keep for a few weeks.

 

Corn Chowder, lactose-free

The sweetness of corn works well here with the salty-smokiness of the prosciutto and smoked paprika.  Roasted garlic comes in handy to perk up soups – sometimes when I’m baking I throw a bulb of garlic in the oven, wrapped in foil.  Then I store it in the fridge for future use.

If you don’t need to make this recipe lactose-free, feel free to use milk or half milk, half cream in place of the soy milk.

What you need:

100 grams prosciutto, chopped into medium-sized chunks

1 large onion, diced

1 leek, sliced

3 stalks celery, diced

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 large potato, chopped

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1 bulb roasted garlic

4 cups chicken stock

2 cans corn or a few cobs

2 cups soy milk

a few dashes of hot sauce

a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper

What you do:

1.  In a large pot, cook the prosciutto for a few minutes, then add the chopped onions, leeks and celery.  Cook on medium heat until they are soft.

2.  Stir in the paprika and cook for a few more minutes.

3.  Add the chicken stock, potato, parsley and roasted garlic.  Cook for about 30 minutes on medium low heat.

4.  Add the corn and soy milk and let them heat up but not boil.  Add hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Ravioli or deconstructed ravioli

I was so excited to use my pasta machine and ravioli press, so I came up with this recipe for the filling.  I’m in love with the filling!  But. . .

In the end I realized that I’m not very good at rolling the pasta into rectangles, and that it’s hard to seal the ravioli properly.  So I ended up with a few tortellini that lost their filling.  After making a bunch of difficult and misshapen ravioli I gave up and made a sort of deconstructed ravioli dish – I just put some hot filling on the plate, then topped it with some long strands of pasta, salt and pepper and a bit of butter.  Same amazing flavour, way less work!  You could just make the filling and use some store-bought pasta – much much simpler!

What you need:

1 recipe of homemade pasta

1 smallish butternut squash

sage

3 cloves garlic

optional: a splash of brandy

salt and pepper

butter or olive oil

What you do:

1.  Prepare pasta dough ahead of time; if you refrigerated it, make sure it come out of the fridge at least an hour before you want to roll it so it’s not too firm.

2.  Cut the squash in half and remove seeds.  Place cut side down on a baking pan.  Bake at 375F for 40-45 minutes. Wrap the garlic, in their papery covers, in a small piece of tin foil and place on the same baking sheet.

3.  Test for doneness by inserting a sharp knife into the flesh of the squash, at the thickest part.  If it goes in easily, the squash is done.

4.  Allow squash to cool before making the filling.  Then scoop it out into a bowl and mix in the garlic with a fork, along with a crumbling of sage and some salt and pepper and the optional brandy.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  They will vary according to the size of the squash and your preference.  I could eat a bowl of the filling alone – it’s soooo good!

5.  With a large pot of water on to boil, roll out the dough.  If you have a machine set it to the thinnest possible.  When you have rectangular shapes, place on top of ravioli press and add a dollop of filling.  Place the top layer of dough on it, and press the shapes out.

6.  If you can’t cook the pasta right away, place a cloth on top to keep it from drying out.  Add the pasta to a large pot of boiling water and cook for only a few minutes.

7.  Drain pasta, then plate it and drizzle a little olive oil on top (or a little butter) and some freshly cracked pepper and salt.  Enjoy!