I needed a break from Chuck. I've almost forgotten that I don't even like sourdough and the whole Adventures with Chuck saga is more about the challenge of sourdough and baking with it. Today I took a break and it was good. Roast Garlic and Fresh Rosemary good.
My poor Rosemary plant is horrified that I chopped part of it for the second time in two weeks after promising not to touch it until spring. I couldn't help myself after I opened up the jar of dried Rosemary and it looked so hard and dry....it looked completely inedible. I ran upstairs to the room I keep my herbs in and looked at the poor pitiful Rosemary. And then I snipped off a bit of the tender new growth. The scent of fresh Rosemary filled the room and before i could control myself I had snipped about two tablespoons worth.
The lesson to learn? Grow more Rosemary!!!!!
They sort of look like bagels, don't they? They are significantly large; I should have put something in the picture to give a sense of scale. I shaped them into couronnes (crowns) and if you look closely, you can sort of see the indentations in the dough.
This bread can be made using your favorite Hearth Bread (Artisan? Rustic? Those terms always confuse me!) recipe. The recipe I use makes about 2 pounds of dough. Replace about 3 ounces of your bread flour with whole wheat flour. Add two tablespoons chopped, fresh garlic and the thoroughly smashed cloves of 3 bulbs of roasted garlic. The smell of the garlic will be strong but rest assured the taste will be just right. Roasting the garlic will mellow the intensity. I looked around the Internet to see if there was a proper term for the taste that develops when you roast garlic but I couldn't find one. What I did find was about two dozen different ways to roast garlic. Some were really complicated and no wonder why not many people bother and buy that crap in jars and shakers.
Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential, Updated Edition, Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly) had a funny line about garlic "...Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in
screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic."
Roasting garlic doesn't exactly require you to peel it. Here's how I do it: I cut off the top of the bulb so that the cloves are exposed. I set it in the center of a square of aluminum foil and I drizzle olive oil over it. Just a little--don't overdo it. Then, I close up the tinfoil (imagine a giant piece of candy) and pop it in a 375 for 45-60 mins. When it is cool enough to handle you just squeeze gently and all of the cloves will just slide out of their little papery jackets.
Be warned...the aroma of the garlic will fill your home better than a Yankee Candle.
