perfect little snack

Roasted garlic is freaking awesome.

And on a holiday cheese platter, it looks really fancy.

Even if that's a little snack platter you make for yourself late at night while doing laundry in preparation for packing for your much needed winter break now that exams are over. (I don't want to talk about it)

The usual cheese and cracker plate looks fabulously impressive with a bulb or two in the middle, and it can also dress up a sausage and pickle tray too.

Unbelievably easy to make as well. And despite what some kitchenware stores would have you think, you don't need any fancy tools or single purpose gadgets to make it. (seriously, who the hell has the cupboard space for this shit?)

In a pure minimalist fashion, all you need is tinfoil.

What you need:

• garlic
• olive oil

believe it or not, this ingredient pic is not missing anything

if you want, you can add salt and/or pepper and/or oregano and/or rosemary and/or crushed dried red chili peppers depending on what flavours are on the rest of your platter, but absolutely none of these things are necessary (I do like a bit of rosemary on mine sometimes though)

What you gotta do:

Rub the bulb with your hands until most of the loose, dry, papery skin is gone. You should be able to see each of the outer cloves individually, but they should still have their skins on them.

Newer bulbs seem to hold on to the skin a bit better. Don't worry about getting it all off; you'll just have to work a bit more to get the yumminess inside. And don't worry if you accidentally bare a clove of garlic, it'll cook just the same without it. You could even actually peel them all and roast them bare, but that doesn't look as nice on the appy platter, and it's way too much work.

Set the bulb on some foil and turn up the edges to make a little bowl.

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the top.

More oil than that. I just wanted to post this pic because it's an action shot and I actually caught a tiny perfectly round drop of oil.

Yeah, more like that.

Fold the foil around the bulb.

Leave an opening in the top, and put this into a 400F oven. Dammit. Got all the ingredients in the pic but forgot the oven preheating step.

This will need about 45 minutes.

It isn't as long as you think. And if you've got 3 or 4 in there, you may need up to an hour. Your goal here is to caramelize the garlic a bit, much the same way you would with onions, but at a bit higher heat.

After about half an hour, your mouth will water at the smell. Sharp and garlicky, but slightly sweet as the delicious sugars start to ooze out of the papers (that's the popping sputtering sound you hear). Give it another 10 or 15 minutes and the sugars will do this:

Oh man, this is going to be fucking tasty.

With a bit of crusty french bread, some spicy sausage, a mild cheese, and omg you have to try pickled asparagus, this is a perfect miniature version of a nibbly tray.

What do you like to put on your nibbly trays?

Comments

[Lesli]

Sundried tomatoes soaked in olive oil.
Goat cheese in a pecan crust
Your garlic
Bruchetta

That's my favorite choice at Red Rock Brewery.
THANKS FOR MAKING ME HUNGRY AT 2 AM!

[the recipe guy]

Roasted garlic is so good because it has 149 Cal/100 g, mostly from sugars. That's about the same energy density as a black walnut. The Maillard reaction amplifies the garlic's sweetness, and the heat breaks down the sulfurous compounds that provide raw garlic's characteristic sharp flavor.

[Cheap Flyers Printing]

Ahh roasted garlic smells sooo good but I'm just after the smell. I don't really eat garlic but since this is roasted, I think I'd consider eating it. :) Looks really really good to me.