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Posts Tagged ‘organic garlic Sydney’

Garlic

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , on December 22, 2009| 7 Comments »

As I’ve mentioned previously, our friends Ian and Diana  Ditchfield grow their own garlic, and we stock up every year when they harvest their crop.

The three kilos Di dropped off today are absolutely gorgeous – aromatic and almost luminescent in their freshness. And whilst the garlic isn’t certified organic (certification is an expensive process), Di and Ian started their crops with organic stock, and have fastidiously kept them chemical-free.

If you’re in NSW and would like to order some, you can contact Diana via email – djditchfield(at)hotmail.com.  They’re charging $30/kg this year, or $20/500g, which I think is a bargain for such tenderly nurtured produce.

In terms of storage – we freeze most of our garlic, broken into unpeeled cloves.  It loses its crunch in the process, but we haven’t noticed a difference in taste or cooking quality – the added advantage being that freezing makes the cloves much easier to peel and mince.

If you don’t want to freeze it, the garlic will keep for quite a while in a cool, airy spot.  This batch was so fresh that I’ve braided some of the bulbs together to hang in the kitchen (great instructions online here)!

Next step…Dan Lepard’s roasted garlic bread recipe!

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Wet Garlic

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , , on November 21, 2009| 12 Comments »

Many years ago, when Big Boy was just a little tacker, Diana and I would sit by the pool and chat while our sons had their weekly swimming lessons.  I’m very blessed, because my wise and generous friend now grows the best organic garlic I’ve ever tasted, and I get first dibs when her crops are ready for sale!

Last night, Di gave us some of her new season “wet” garlic to experiment with.  Almost all garlic that we buy in stores is “dry” – the bulbs  are hung and allowed to mature after harvesting, resulting in long lasting, papery heads with individually wrapped cloves.

By contrast, wet garlic is pulled from the soil before the cloves are fully formed, much milder in flavour, and similar in texture to a leek.  The bulbs are usually still attached to their long green foliage (scapes).

Here it is sliced – you can see how the cloves will eventually form…

I turned the stems into  garlic scape pesto by simply blitzing them in the food processor with olive oil, pine nuts and grated parmesan cheese.

Pete used the bulb and a small piece of scape to make sourdough garlic bread – the milder flavour meant he could really pile on the garlic without it becoming overpowering.

The bread was topped with gourmet mushrooms which had been panfried in butter, olive oil, sliced wet garlic and a dash of 40 year old port.

A wonderful meal, and somewhat surprisingly, we don’t all reek of garlic this morning.  Many thanks, Di!

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