Elephant Garlic

Now, according to the label, this beast is supposed to taste delicate, more like leek than garlic. And it only takes an hour to cook. Well mine didn’t, on both counts. Even I couldn’t eat this simply “spread on toast”. But never mind, I gave it another blast in the oven, which gave me some more time to think what the hell to do with it. In an ideal world, the garlic would have been great in a creamy almond and orange soup, but I don’t think my family could stomach that, particularly on the only warm weekend we had all summer. But this bulb goes to show that cooking disasters can often turn into something delicious. So here’s what I did with mine.


Butternut Aioli

Mash a soft, roasted elephant garlic clove (or 4-5 regular roasted cloves) in a bowl. I had some leftover butternut squash from the previous day, so what the heck, I mashed that up too. Add a tablespoon of both mayonnaise and natural yoghurt, then a squeeze of lemon juice and a small handful of parsley. Hey presto, you’ve got a cracking dip. I spread this on my toasted focaccia pieces and topped with roasted peppers. It would go great with crudités at a buffet too.

Roasted Red Peppers with Elephant Garlic

For the life of me, I can’t remember what the dish is called that this is a variation of. I had something like it in Hell Bay Hotel in the Scilly Isles as a starter- mackerel with red peppers, croutons and black olives. I didn’t particularly enjoy it to be honest, so I shouldn’t even be mentioning it, but the peppers were good so that’s what I’m going for.

Take two peppers (I used one yellow, one red) and quarter. Roast in a little olive oil for about half an hour, or until soft. Allow to cool, then slice. Roughly chop another soft elephant garlic clove, and stir into the peppers. Add lots of lemon juice again, olive oil and salt and pepper. A little parsley wouldn’t go amiss too, but seeing as our summer has been so awful at home this year, the only herb we have fresh is rosemary. Again, I topped toasted bruschetta slices with this, then layered on a little parma ham for a decadent lunch in ten minutes of sunshine.