Confit Garlic

Confit refers to both a dish as well as a method of cooking. To confit means to cook slowly in very low temperature fat or oil (usually) until meltingly tender. With garlic, the process makes it meltingly tender and mild, leaving flavor without heat. This makes it ideal for adding to salad dressing, mashed potatoes, mayonnaise, or smearing on toast. The other point to making confit garlic is the oil itself that you cook the garlic in. It becomes suffused with a lovely garlic flavor that is mild without being hot. You can use this oil as a base for cooking or as part of a salad dressing. It is also the base for slow-cooked broccoli or cauliflower. Use fresh garlic rather than the stuff that comes in plastic tubs.* See Chef’s Note’s for a tip about getting the garlic smell off your hands.

INGREDIENTS:

METHOD:
Break up the heads of garlic and select only the large cloves of garlic, leaving the little slips for another use. They would cook too fast and to be honest, the work involved in peeling the little ones for this is tedious. Slice off the tough base of each clove, then peel, avoiding crushing or bruising the cloves. Give the cloves a good rinse, then blot the cloves completely dry.

Put the cloves into a really small pan, something just large enough to hold them with an inch or two above. Ideally it would be a small sauce pot made of heavy gauge metal so it holds heat.

Add enough oil to cover the garlic by 1-inch.

Heat the pan over medium heat, and when you first notice small bubbles coming up from the pan bottom, lower the heat to its lowest setting so only a bubble or two might be seen, but you don’t want it to simmer or disturb the surface of the oil. Every so often, give the cloves a gentle stir so they do not stick to the pan bottom and cook evenly.

Cook for 30-40 minutes, or until the cloves are tender all the way through and easily pierced with the tip of a knife. When done, remove the pan from the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer the cloves to a clean jar. Allow to cool, and while the garlic cools, strain the oil through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl.

When both are cool, pour oil over garlic to cover, and if there is enough oil to warrant it, put in a small bottle for use at the stove. Otherwise just add all the oil to the garlic. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use, and always use fresh, squeaky clean steel utensils to retrieve garlic or oil from the jar. DO NOT use your fingers or you may start something nasty growing in there.

Keep in the coldest part of refrigerator. Use within 2 weeks.

Chef’s Notes:

Some folks worry about botulism with this preparation. For this reason, make sure all equipment-pan, bowls, jar/bottle, and sieve are all quite clean. This is also why you rinse the peeled cloves of garlic, which should be done after peeling the garlic and then washing your hands. And why you always use fresh clean implements for fetching out garlic cloves and not your fingers. Some folks say the garlic will last for months. It might, but I think the flavor drops off, and as this is not a “canned” recipe like pickles and so on, I would not keep this all that long.

*Using the peeled garlic in tubs is not such a great idea for many reasons-a greater likelihood of micro-things living in there is one. Also, many jarred garlic products are made from garlic that has started to sprout. The little green shoot coming out of the germ can harbor microbes, and those sprouts often indigestion in many people. Most people who say they can’t eat garlic because it does not agree with them are people who react to the sprout and what it does in the stomach. Also, tubbed garlic can be fairly old, and might taste bitter or metallic. So, use fresh garlic or give this recipe a pass.

How to remove garlic smell (or onions, fish, etc.): Get your hands wet and rub them with something stainless steel. You can buy things in kitchen stores for this purpose, or you can just rub your hands on the faucet, or with a stainless steel spoon or handle. Just rub and rinse. After a few moments the smell is gone. I have no idea how or why this works, but it does. I have peeled and minced a pound of garlic, then used this trick and it works.

Yield: 1 cup or so of cloves, plus oil

Source: Chef Andrew E Cohen