Tip: this is how you get the tastiest garlic

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: roasted garlic from the oven.

Do you also have such a dream image of the perfect bulb of roasted garlic in mind? (We do, because we dream about food all the time.). How creamy, soft, aromatic, and spreadable that dream bulb is? Velvety and caramelized, actually sweet, and not normally delicious. The reality? That roasted garlic is often bitter or sharp and not something you would like to spread on your crispy oven potatoes smeared. How can that be better?

Such a shame: have you been looking forward to squeezing those fragrant softened cloves onto perhaps a slice of delicious sourdough toastand then it’s one big disappointment… So if you’re afraid that you’ll end up with a bulb of burnt bitter stuff, follow these tips.

Low and slow
This is the most important. No matter how convenient it seems to just throw that bulb onto the baking sheet where you’re going to roast some nice edges on those roasted vegetables at 220 degrees: that doesn’t work. The garlic bulb will burn and the inner core of each clove will not be soft when the outside is charred. Go for a whole bulb of garlic for about three quarters of an hour in an oven of no more than 175 degrees, but a little longer at an even lower temperature is even better. So you need to figure that out well in relation to your other dishes.

Just pack it
Also make sure that there is enough oil can get into the cloves: cut a small cap off the top of the bulb horizontally and drizzle the oil on and between the cloves. Wrap well in aluminum foil and then place it in a not too hot oven for at least 45 minutes. If at the end of the cooking time the cloves are not lightly browned, you can also put the bulb back in without foil for a while.

Unwrap it
After that, you should be able to gently squeeze out each clove when they are completely soft. Or place the bulb whole on a serving platter next to, for example, those delicious roasted vegetables and perfect tender chicken breast. Yum!