If you’re lucky enough to have planted some garlic last year (see this garlic planting post to see how easy it is!!), you will want to know how to use up all of your fresh garlic – because, trust me when I tell you, fresh garlic is incredible!!
If you didn’t, make sure you grab a few heads at your farmer’s market…it’s always so much fresher than the heads you get at the store!!
And, if you buy lots (and you should totally buy lots!!), you can always make a batch of roasted garlic and then you will always have some incredible garlic flavoured paste whenever you want an added garlic kick!!
But, what do you do with all that garlic?? Well, let’s take this apart – literally – step by step!!
Separate you head of garlic into cloves. If you have a few heads, then you can peel the cloves by smashing it with the back of a knife.
However, if you have lots, try this garlic peeling trick!!
Okay…back to smashing your garlic…just place the blade of your largest knife on top of your clove and bang it with the palm of your hand.
The skins should slide off easily (it will be easier if it’s fresh!). Just pull off the skins and proceed…
I like to cut my garlic in half, horizontally so there is a flat edge to sit on the cutting board and it doesn’t slide all over the place.
Mince the garlic into smallish pieces.
Now. here is the neat trick if your garlic is super fresh (which means there will be lots of garlic juice that you don’t want to waste)…
Put some salt on your cutting board. Place your cut up garlic on top of it so all of those awesome garlic juices will absorb into the salt and not into your cutting board – to be lost forever!
Place the blade of your knife on an angle and rub the garlic into the salt…keep rubbing until it becomes a beautiful paste (see below)
Once you’ve finished, you can preserve it like this secret mixture (which I have in the fridge all the time!!)
Or you can make garlic aoli …
So many decisions…
At least you can safely say you will be Dracula free for days!!
