Roasted Garlic

It took me a few tries to get this to work. Commonly I saw that Elephant garlic is best because the cloves are larger and the head yields more. This is all true, but what about the taste? Elephant garlic is not really garlic. It's actually the bulb of a garden leek. It is not onion tasting and does have a garlic taste, though more mild than true garlic. When garlic is roasted it becomes more mild and sweet. The elephant garlic just didn't cut it for me flavor-wise and it proved harder to roast for me.

I think this roasting issue was because many of the recipes I read instructed a rather low heat and a rather short cook time. We Like to Cook makes their elephant garlic in 30-35 magical minutes at only 350°F. This one from Sass and Veracity recommends 325°F for 1 hour. I tried the first, then extended the time to the second. Still no dice. Maybe it's because I don't have the special garlic baker, but mine was not at all like their pictures after the respective lengths.

This is what came out of my oven after 30 minutes at 350°F and an extended 30 minutes after that. After a whole hour it had become an odd green color and wasn't very roasted looking nor yummy tasting. Poop.

It wasn't really spreadable since as you can see it's only partially cooked.

I was disappointed that these methods seemed to work so well for these other ladies and they went so poorly for me. I swear I did follow the directions (minus special garlic roaster dish of course). So I vowed, with God as my witness, I'd never go hungry again!! Oh wait that was Scarlett O'Hara, I vowed to try-try again.

Roasted garlic was starting to feel like roast chicken, everyone has the RIGHT way to do it and none of them worked for me. But you have to start somewhere and tweak your own recipe to work for you personally. I decided to switch back to real garlic. For me it was quality over quantity and I like the real deal. I found Chew Out Loud's recipe of 400°F for one hour much more believable.

I opted to cut not halfway through the bulb, but closer to the top. I left it slightly attached like a little hat. Look at how cool and hive-like that looks.

Also these neat layers of paper! Garlic is fun.

I doubled up some foil and shaped it around my fist. Then put the garlic in the bowl I made and soaked it with olive oil. A little extra roasted garlic oil wouldn't go amiss with me.

 I gave the top a liberal sprinkling of kosher salt too.

Then put the little top hat back on.

And wrapped it up into this strange cone shape. No reason, I don't even know why.

And viola. One hour later, REALLY roasted garlic. It's almost a tad too roasted if anything! I think since tinfoil is not a very protective heating vessel some of the outside got a little darker and less soft. But that didn't bother me at all.

I poured the extra oil over the top and squeezed a few out to eat. They pop out so easily when roasted long enough and are just so delicious. My mind started racing thinking about all the awesome stuff I could do with roasted garlic.

But for now, I removed the cloves and roughly mashed them in the oil with a fork to make eating easier. Divine smeared on fresh crusty bread.