As the weather continues to get warmer I like to move away from warming foods and onto cooling foods.  I enjoy things like hummus that can be spread on bread or crackers and things like homemade dips that can be served with raw vegetables.  As you may have noticed from some of the past year’s worth of recipes, one of the flavors that I’m very fond of is garlic.  In autumn and winter foods, which are so often slowly roasted or braised, raw garlic can be cooked into a more mellow flavor.  To make dips and spreads you need to be able to bring out the mellow roasted flavor that is so popular in cold weather foods without spending hours in the kitchen.

Here is a step by step guide to getting wonderful, warm, mellow garlic flavor out of a head of garlic.

Remove the papery outer skins and use a sharp knife to cut off the tips of the cloves.  The goal of this is to allow liquid to enter the cloves, so make sure that each tip has been cut.

The next step is poaching the garlic.  I normally use plain old water as my poaching liquid, but this week every single person in my house decided to buy milk, and so I went with milk.  Use any neutral, non-acidic liquid to poach the garlic.

You don’t need to measure out the milk.  Just use enough that the garlic can be totally submerged.  The smaller the pan the less poaching liquid you will need to use.  Poach the garlic for about 8 minutes at a simmer.  The garlic should give when pressed with a fingertip, but not be soft to the point of mushiness.

Cut a square of aluminum foil large enough that you can completely wrap the garlic head in it.  Place the garlic in the center of the foil with the shiny side down.

Pour extra virgin olive oil over the garlic.  Because the only flavors are going to be garlic and olive oil it is important to use the best quality olive oil.  Use one or two teaspoons of oil.

Wrap up the garlic in the foil and place it in a glass baking dish or ramekin.  Make sure that the foil isn’t going to leak or the olive oil will burn and smoke.

Heat the oven to 300-325 degrees.  Here’s a hint, don’t scrub all the numbers off the temperature dial on your oven.  If you do (not that I have any experience with this) all I can suggest is do the best you can and buy a good oven thermometer.

Roast the garlic for 50-60 minutes.  Allow the garlic to cool breifly until you can touch it without burning yourself.   Use a wooden spoon or the flat blade of a chef’s knife to squeeze the garlic out of its casings starting from the root end of the head and working down to the cut end.

You can use the roast garlic in soups, dips, or spreads or you can store it in the fridge in an air-tight container for up to a month while you await inspiration.