As we’re awash with new garlic, I thought it was prudent to use up the remains of my frozen stash from last year!
When we buy our new season garlic each year from Di and Ian, we keep some of it aside for immediate consumption and break the rest into cloves which we vacuum seal and freeze in a thick plastic bag. After a full year in our stand-alone freezer, our cloves were still in great condition…
Freezing changes the texture of the cloves – they become translucent and softer. Peeling is much easier, and we don’t really discern a noticeable difference in flavour or aroma, although we do always cook our frozen garlic.
I made a caramelised garlic filling using a Dan Lepard recipe which I posted about almost exactly one year ago. The recipe specifies boiling the unpeeled cloves, but as our defrosted garlic was already quite soft, I simply immersed them briefly in a bowl of boiling water and then removed the papery skins. You can see from the photo below that the defrosted cloves are a different colour and texture to fresh – they’re no longer crunchy, but rather have a soft, almost gelatinous quality to them.
The blanched cloves were browned briefly in olive oil, before a mixture of water, balsamic vinegar, caster sugar, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary were added (quantities are here)…
The thick caramel was allowed to cool slightly before being incorporated into a batch of white sourdough. I simply flattened out the dough, spread over the mixture, and folded the sides over to enclose it.
The end result was delicious – sweet, but not overly so – and very garlicky!
Holy COW that looks delicious. I’ll have to try it.
That bread looks amazing. The Ultimate garlic bread!
I’m thinking that that carmelized garlic would be a great spread as well. On top of a pork roast or an unsuspecting slice of bread= mmm!
Ah, garlic. It’ll be six months before we’ve got it here. I love it when it’s fresh, before it’s dried–a VERY garlicky treat. But caramelized? Shut up! I’m thinking about these cloves with some feta or perhaps soft goat cheese.
Oh wow – what can’t you do with bread?
Yum!
That looks delicious! I’ve never made homemade bread though…scares me a bit.
Oh, my. Your bread looks fabulous! I have always frozen my garlic as a whole head and just break off what I need. It will become stronger over time, so I just use less than what the recipe calls for. And you’re right, frozen garlic peels very, very easily. Roasted garlic freezes well, too!
I’ve never experimented with frozen garlic – don’t know why, but I shall this next go-round. I can attest to 6 month old storage garlic being next to unusable – in fact, I’m ready to go buy some.
Garlic bread, nothing better!
Oh this looks marvellous!
I love the opaqueness of the frozen bulbs and the flavours in the filling – sweet, fresh, herby with the pungency of the garlic. Yum
Deeelicious Celia :-)
Thank you all!
Heidi and Mark, it would make a very nice spread, but would need to warmed slightly, as the caramel gets quite hard and sticky. Hmm. Mark, now all I can do is think about eating it with goat’s cheese.. ;-)
Frieda, thanks for the tip – I didn’t know you could freeze it whole!
Doc, if I had my choice, I would always use fresh, unfrozen garlic but our local growing season is so short and I can’t bear throwing out mouldy garlic! Especially now that I know what’s involved in growing and curing it.. ;-)
I never knew garlic could look so beautiful!
Oh my! This recipe is glorious looking.
I admit I have a weird thing for garlic. For “Inspiration” some people go for oysters, some go for truffles, some a couple of glasses of wine… but I go for a rich garlicky buttery gfree garlic bread. Lucky for me BigJ loves it too!
If I want to have less pungency in a recipe for perhaps, a delicate sauce, I blanch the whole cloves briefly- or if I’m feeling lazy I soak them in boiling water for a while. This takes out some of the extra sulphurous notes and results in a more delicate flavour.
This is gorgeous Celia! I love the caramelised garlic bread at Brasserie bread but yours is great because you can directly control how much garlic to put in (more of course!) :P
Sue, Lorraine, thank you!
B, there is almost nothing better than garlic bread! I’m surprised how much soaking the cloves in boiling water mellowed them out…
Freezing garlic sounds like a useful trick if you have an abundance and don’t have a good place to keep the bulbs dry. Our garage has an average temp of 8 – 13 C and keeps the garlic really well for months. Colder and it starts to shoot, warmer and it goes mouldy.
I have made Dan’s caramelized garlic bread a couple of times – it is a meal on its own :)
Happy New Year, Celia.
Your bread looks absolutely delicious – certainly a cut above the usual garlic bread!
When I buy garlic I always keep some for using fresh but freeze most of it as individual bulbs before it withers. When defrosted the bulbs can be squashed down to a paste very quickly with a knife and simply disappear into cooking. Frozen ginger is good too, which I cut into portion sized unpeeled lumps before freezing and is best used grated from slightly defrosted, but can also be chopped. I find both of these easier to use in cooking than fresh, in fact I almost think I prefer them!
hopeeternal
‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’
http://www.hopeeternalcookbook.wordpress.com
See why you have turned me into a bread baking wannabe.
I have never seen garlic after it has been frozen. How interesting. Well I haven’t bought the bread book yet but it is on my list. One quick question.. you posted a cheese buscuit about a month or two ago. Looked like it had black sesame seeds on the sides. I tried to find them on the site but was unable. Could you help? Thank Celia. B:)
Yum yum yum!
It reminded me of the Brasserie Bread garlic bread too (like Lorraine). Not that you would know about it Celia seeing how you haven’t bought bread for…how many years is it?! You are so clever making this. I bet it was delicious.
I am not with you on the frozen garlic though….I can’t go past the fresh garlic. I do throw away a fair amount of mouldy garlic over the year though, as I end up buying lots whenever I spot some decent garlic.
Oh my goodness, that would be wonderful Celia, I can imagine the aromas floating out of your kitchen the day you were caramelising these babies. Delicious :)
Jo, those garage temps are fantastic – you must be able to store all sorts of root veg in there!
Hope, thank you – we’ve frozen ginger before in the past as well, although I personally like raw ginger, as we often use it fresh. Agree that both frozen ginger and garlic are very easy to use! :)
Beth, thank you – the cheese bikkie is a Dan Lepard recipe – I made it with poppyseeds instead of caraway. The link is here: https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2010/11/09/weekend-treats/
Claire, thank you! :)
SG, credit for this really does go to Dan the Man (Dan Lepard) – it’s his recipe. On his forum is a really detailed step by step tutorial on making the loaf. I only followed the filling part and used my regular sourdough for the bread bit. http://www.danlepard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=924
Anna, it was hard to resist just smushing the cloves on crackers and eating them! :)
Looks fantastic Celia.
I also appreciate learning about Australian Garlic and Dan’s formula for this type of sourdough. Thankyou. I’m inspired. You make it look easy as usual.
Craig
Craig, thank you, although I’ve never actually tried the dough bit of the recipe – it does look very wet, doesn’t it? But the filling is easy and delicious, would also be nice in a focaccia I think!
You’re right, it does look like the Brasserie version (my personal weakness come market day). I’m inspired to try freezing, though I never have a problem with mouldy cloves, more a problem with running out. Will try ginger too. Anything but use those horrible jars of processed stuff!
I read more about the black garlic yesterday. Apparently it is fermented for a month at high temps to obtain that black stickiness. It looks interesting, but caramelised cloves look even better.
That looks so so good! I want a piece of that right now! I freeze garlic a lot too, but I have it unpeeled. Mine doesn’t go translucent like that, but does become quite soft.
Vix, the black garlic is a treat, but you’re right, the caramelised garlic is wickedly good.. :)
Susan, I freeze the garlic unpeeled in cloves – this batch was particularly old, a full 12 months in the freezer, but still perfectly good for cooking..
OMG, that looks really good, have to try it sometime! We also freeze our garlic, it’s so convenient to use this way. Also freeze chilli, ginger, curry leaves, kaffir leaves and bananas. The bananas do turn a little too brown for my liking though.