Keeping the vampires at bay

from bbcgoodfood.com

We love garlic. I love the taste of fresh garlic. I have been known to consume an entire bulb of roasted garlic by squeezing the cloves directly into my mouth. FACT.

 

But I do hate chopping garlic. I like it finely minced and it is a faff to do. I used to have a mini chopper that would do it for you, but it has ceased to work and so I could never chop it as fine or as quickly as I would like. I ended up leaving it out of recipes as the onions, carrot and pepper would be sautéing in the pan and I would be trying to peel a clove and dice it small and then would give up and start to swear as the kettle had just boiled or the oven timer had gone off and the next stage of the meal was ready to happen and I hadn’t finished the fecking garlic yet.

 

Has that ever happened to you? I tried buying a jar of pre-chopped garlic in white vinegar  but it always had a vinegar-y taste. Then I came across an idea form my old friend A Girl called Jack. Her cookbook suggested doing several bulbs all at once and chopping them in the food processor with a splash of oil and then freezing ice cube trays.

 

I bought 4 medium sized bulbs of  garlic for £1 and set about peeling them. I tried the technique of shaking them like a cocktail to get the papery skins off. This didn’t remove the skins altogether but it did make them much easier to remove. Especially since I had about 40 cloves to deal with.

 

I put half the cloves (2 bulbs worth) in the food processor with a splash of yellow rapeseed oil (canola oil for my American peeps) and then blended it up.

 

Then I blended it up and added the rest of the cloves (the other two bulbs) in and blended them up to soak up the rest of the oil.

 

I was left with a finely minced garlic in oil that I could freeze. I just love the bright yellow colour from the oil.

 

I managed to fill in 25 ice cube compartments and then froze them for later.

 

The resulting cubes popped out with ease the next day and were stored away in an airtight container in the freezer--just like my cubes of smoky chipotle peppers in adobe sauce.

 

The result: Perfect. Cooking is a breeze. I just pull out a cube or two and sauté in the pan. The garlic tastes good--there is no prep time which suits me. The oil melts into the pan and adds flavour to the food.

 

It took me about 45 minutes but should last for about a months worth of meals so I think it was entirely worth it. 

 

So thanks Jack for another tip!