Garlic Confit

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Great	Great	Good	Use It Up

This a pantry staple every garlic lover should know about.  I found the recipe in Thomas Keller's beautiful cookbook Bouchon.  I never buy bottled chopped garlic anymore and if I run out of this, the pantry feels a bare.  I add it to pasta sauces, dips, and mashed potatoes or to make garlic butter.  You name it, if there's a place for garlic in the recipe, I've probably used this instead of raw garlic and usually loved the results.  As an added bonus, having this on-hand also means there's always a supply of garlic infused olive oil in my pantry.



Ingredients:
1 cup peeled garlic cloves (about 45 cloves)
2 cups oil (this is approximate - I use olive; the original recipe calls for canola)

Instructions:
Peel the garlic cloves and cut off the root ends.  Place garlic in a small heavy-bottomed pot and add enough oil to completely cover the cloves by at 1/2"-1".

Place pot over medium-low heat.  I have a gas stove and have to use a diffuser to get a low enough even heat.  There should be very small bubbles but never a real simmer.  It must cook very slowly.

Cook about 40 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes.  The cloves should be knife tender and lightly golden.  Remove the pot from the heat and allow to cool completely.  Transfer the oil and garlic to a glass jar.  Refrigerate.  As long as the garlic is submerged in oil, it will keep about a month.