Pickled Garlic

Name: Pickled Garlic
Yield: makes five 4-ounce jars
Ingredients: 1 pound, 2 ounces new season’s garlic bulbs; 1 teaspoon fennel seeds; About 12 peppercorns (black, white, or pink); 4 to 6 bay leaves; 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cider vinegar; 1/4 cup granulated sugar; Good pinch of saffron threads

January 24, 2012

Season: May to August. Garlic is the strongest-tasting member of the Allium family, and the moodiest too. It can change character considerably depending on how it is treated. Left whole and cooked slowly, it is gentle and soft. Chopped up, it will release a little more of its pungent aroma, while crushed to a paste it attains the strong, sometimes bitter flavor that makes it notorious. When pickled, it remains crisp to the bite, but the flavor becomes really quite mellow – you can eat the cloves straight from the jar. I like to slice the pickled garlic cloves finely and scatter them over salads, serve them whole as antipasti, or nestle lots of them around a slowly roasting joint of lamb. Garlic grows well – not just in the vegetable patch, but also in containers, tubs, and even flower borders, where it can help ward off aphids. New season’s bulbs, with their soft white or purplish pink skins, are mild and sweet – and much better for pickling than older, drier-skinned garlic, which can be bitter.

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