Pickled Garlic and in a bit of a pickle!

I could never imagine cooking without garlic… I love it and thankfully so do the rest of the family. Eating garlic in its raw state is way too strong but eating pickled garlic is a different matter altogether. Pickled garlic is very mild in taste and does not leave your breath reeking of its pungent flavour… keeping everyone at arm’s length or even further. While in France visiting friends they always served pickled garlic with an array of pickled olives, cheeses, pâté and freshly baked crusty bread, all bought from local farmers markets.

Bringing back some heads of garlic I thought I would have a go at pickling garlic at home. I enjoy making preserved lemons and some jams but I have never pickled garlic before and googling recipes it all looked very easy. Over a week ago I started the pickling process and now I’m in a bit of a pickle… I thought I could tell you that it has been a great success and post about the delicious results! Some recipes suggested that you could eat the pickled garlic as soon as 48 hours, some a week (which quite a few stated) and others a month. After a week I tested a clove of garlic… very, very garlicky, the taste was so strong and not pleasant at all. As with all recipes on this blog, I will not post a recipe that I am not comfortable with… and this recipe needs further maturing, hopefully achieving results that I can share.

All is not lost… if you have never tried pickled garlic look out for some at your local deli or supermarket. Serve pickled garlic with drinks before dinner, sliced into salads, sandwiches or use finely chopped in salad dressing… a few uses to get you started.

FIY... thought I would give the blue silicone garlic peeler a little mention, quite handy for quickly removing the skins from garlic cloves. This kitchen gadget came free with a cooking utensil bought some time ago. Pop a few garlic cloves into the silicone tube and roll it back and forth, this usually removes the skin.

Meanwhile, if anyone out there has an easy recipe for pickling garlic, I’d love to hear from you. 🙂 Let’s see after a few weeks how the pickled garlic progresses, I will keep you up-dated.