Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Cooking, Storing and Preserving => Topic started by: shokkyy on March 28, 2013, 01:22
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This is the second year running we've got to this time of year and I've been kicking myself for not doing something about drying and chopping some of my garlic crop. I've got loads left and I'm going to have to chuck them because they're starting to shoot and going all soft, and I really hate to do that. I do have a dehydrator but last year I ended up not doing it because I read in the Mary Bell book that you have to cut the cloves into even slices and I just never found the time to do all the peeling, slicing and chopping. This year I really must do it, because I've planted even more garlic than I did last year so if all goes well the crop should be even bigger.
Does anyone know any handy tips or shortcuts to reduce the amount of work involved? It's not that I'm being lazy, just that I really struggle to find the amount of spare time it would take to do all that. I can use my mini chopper to help with the chopping bit, though they'd have to be dried first or it would just turn them into mush. But is it really necessary to do the slicing stuff before dehydrating? Anyone tried chucking whole cloves in? The peeling alone would take a fair amount of time for a significant number of cloves, but I don't have the best knife skills and it would take me quite a long time to slice them too.
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Can you not just cut the root end off and give them a good bash? The skin comes off fairly easy then and you could dry them or bash them again (good for relieving stress) until they're thin enough. Or peel them and whizz with some oil and freeze.
I'm sure they'd be fine frozen in cloves too if you don't mind peeling them before use.
M :)
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Garlic shrinks a lot when dehydrated, so you could chuck the smaller cloves in whole Shokkyy. It is hard to process once dried though. Even thin slices dried go rock hard. I have tried drying in big and small pieces, plus done the Mary Bell trick of freezing, then blitzing, but it was fairly reistant to my Magimix ::)
Last couple of years I have used Val's method of preserving in oil, by pouring oil heated to 180 degrees C over peeled cloves in a sterilized jar, then storing in the fridge. I eat the crop stored in the shed first then open the oil preserved jar. The garlic goes very mellow in the oil so you can chuck it into whatever you are cooking in big chunks. It is a bit messy digging the cloves out of the oil, which goes thick in the fridge, but the oil itself had great flavour, so it good as an ingredient in its own right :)
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Thanks for those suggestions. I wonder what the commercial process is for producing chopped garlic?
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whenever I have an amount of Garlic that may go off / soft /sprout etc I preserve it. Peel it all, chuck it in a food processor to finally chop it and the stick it in a jar / container and cover it with olive oil. Then when you need to use it just a spoonful etc. It'll keep for months in a cool dark place.
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I leave my garlic to dry and then peel it all, whizz in the food processor and then put in jars with white wine vinegar poured over the top which is what 'lazy garlic' in the shops is. I then use a fork to get it out of the jar when required so you don't get much vinegar out. The jar we are using at the moment is one of two Nescafe jars I made last year.
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Yes, that sounds like a much less labour (and electricity) intensive method than slicing, dehydrating and chopping. My little mini chopper would blast through the cloves in no time. I just wasn't sure how long it would keep if it wasn't dried, but I guess the lazy garlic in the shops keeps for a very long time.
I think it's probably too late for last year's crop because most of the cloves feel quite soft already, but I'll certainly make a jar or two next year. So annoying to have to throw it away.
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I am growing garlic indoors, but I don't feel like doing it right. The plant looks healthy and its foliage starts to turn yellow. Should I harvest or what?
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What you do define as "indoors", greenhouse, house, polytunnel etc.?
Whatever it is, it's probably too warm. Garlic needs the cold.
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I've taken to peeling them and freezing the cloves whole. I discovered this whilst visiting my daughter in Canada where they seem to do it all the time.
You have to do it when the cloves are fresh but its simple to cut off the root of the clove and then the skin just slides off if you squeeze it at the top. Frozen whole cloves are great and if you leave them to defrost they mash up easily.
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one trick I learned was to easily peel garlic, put it in a saucepan with a lid then vigourously shake for a few minutes, when you finish all your garlic will be peeled.
might make bulk peeling easier..
Grendel
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Thanks for the tip Grendel, I shall try that this year. :)
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Easiest way to peel garlic is to cut it in half lengthwise and the peel falls off the two halves. Or give the kids a job to do by peeling them.
If you have a food processor with a slicer attachment chuck the cloves into that and let it do the slicing. Some folk have luck using an egg slicer to do their garlic, others find it too difficult but the processor definitely works. The slices don't have to be paper thin for dehydrating, but uniformity is better for timing.
Note that recent studies find that frozen garlic quickly loses all it's nutritional properties. Freezing is handy for storage but that's all.