Roasted Garlic

You Will Need:

• About a dozen or so heads of garlic.
• One lemon
• Olive oil
• Pepper and Kosher or Sea Salt
• A 9×13″ cake pan, or casserole dish.  Pyrex glass is fine.
• Aluminum foil

Procedure for making the Ultimate, Roasted Garlic Base

• Line your pan with aluminum foil and set near your work area.
• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. ( 175 C.)
• Using a large, serrated bread knife, take off just the top of the garlic head.  you want to make sure each clove had just a little bit of the tip removed.  Try not to remove too much of the garlic clove tops, but you want enough removed to expose the clove.  You can dispose of these tips.  (I save them and use them for making stock.)  Place each head in the pan and line them up in a row
• Place the garlic on a foil-lined baking sheet and rub 1 teaspoon of oil into the top of each head. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and place, cut side down, on the baking sheet. Bake until the cloves are soft and golden, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let sit until cool enough to handle. Carefully remove each clove of garlic from the head. Squeeze each head of garlic to expel any cloves that you cannot remove individually. Set aside until needed.
• Once you have all of your garlic heads prepared and panned, you will want to brush or drizzle a little olive oil onto the exposed tops.  You don’t really want to drench them in oil, so be careful not to do too much.  If you don’t have a pastry brush, pour a little olive oil into a cup and then use a teaspoon to drizzle it over each head.
• Liberally salt and pepper each head.

• Using another piece of foil, cover the pan and seal the edges tightly.
• Place in the oven, on the middle or top rack, for about an hour.

Note: No, you do not have to peel the garlic.  You might want to removed some of the outer paper of the garlic, but there is no need to peel  the head.

• Once the garlic is done roasting, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest for about 10 minutes before you remove the foil.  Be careful, there will be steam.

•  After you lift off the foil, you might want to let the garlic cool for about another 20 to 30 minutes.  Be careful, they could still be warm.  You will be next squeezing these little guys out of their husks.  When it comes out, each head should have a nice dark, golden-brown color.  It should be shiny, almost glossy.

• THE FUN PART.  I use gloves, but you don’t have to.  Just make sure your hands are very, very clean and well washed with antibacterial soap.  I find that washing the hands and then using gloves lowers the chance of contaminating your newly roasted product and can help extend shelf like.
• So what you want to do is, over a bowl, take each husk and squeeze it and watch the garlic cloves shoot out like you are squeezing a tube of toothpaste.  A firm, gentle pressure is all you need.  Try to get out as much of the garlic as possible, making sure no paper gets into the bowl.  You can throw away the husks, or they make great compost.
• Once you have all of your cloves in the bowl, you can now add the zest of one lemon and a few teaspoons of the juice.
• Add about a teaspoon or so of salt and fresh black pepper.
• Add olive oil to the bowl.  Depending on your intended use, you could use more or less.  But, generally, you can figure about a half teaspoon per head.

14. Take a fork and mash it up, making sure each clove is completely mashed.  You want to get it looking like a paste.  Make sure you get the oil well mixed into the product.

15. Store in an airtight container.

And that’s it.  You now have an excellent base you can store in the fridge and use anytime you want and use in practically any dish.  It keeps about a week to ten days.  

(Afterthought:  You don’t have to add the lemon, if you don’t want to.  Personally, I find it keeps an element of freshness to the final product.  You may also add dried herbs to the base.  In the last pic, I have some oregano in the olive oil that can provide an additional flavor component)

Copy from Brian Roberts