New Garlic

Rocklobster

Rocklobster

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I just received a batch from a customer who grows and sells....there are three kinds in this batch...I couldn't imagine starting a meal without it...
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@Rocklobster, @epicuric,

Yes, I am a big fan of lavender Garlic from southern France .. The Langedoc Región Designation of origin in France, AOC ..

These are Beautiful garlic bulbs ..

Taste profile: I find them much more aromatic and more subtle than the mass produced white ..

Have a lovely day ..
 
epicuric said:
I'd never really considered different types of garlic before. Do they vary in taste?
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There are many different types of garlic and they vary greatly in taste. In that photo, I have three types of hard neck garlic. The larger one is called Polish Hardneck. It is strong and hot. Good for cooking sauces, gravies, roasting meats..it's flavor holds up and lasts long. Very hearty and good for long storage. Then, there is purple stripe. It is very common as it grows and stores well in our climate. The third one is called racambole. It is smaller, has less cloves per bulb and has a lighter flavor..good for eating raw in vinagarettes, or salads..but also cooks well..
There are other types also....
 
Well I learned a lot from this thread, @Rocklobster! :okay: I had never heard of racambole. I'm not sure we can get that. I don't think we have the same names for garlic over here. The Isle of Wight is famous for garlic growing in the UK - I'll have to research this a bit more!
 
And I found this (it seems we can get Rocambole in the UK):

Porcelain garlic
The classic, pearly white garlic, with a stiff neck and figure-hugging skin. It holds just four or five uniform cloves. The neck is the remains of the bulb's shoots, a snaky tangle known as the "scape" which can be used in cooking. White garlic is beautiful to look at, simple and strong in taste.

Rocambole garlic
Purple-streaked, loose skinned, a big-flavoured garlic that doesn't keep long. Hot and full of flavour, they are a chef's favourite. High in sulfenic acid, which gives garlic its chilli-like burning taste, but quickly dissipates. (If you want to conserve this heat, treat the garlic gently – don't crush the clove, and cook it less.)

Spanish or red garlic
Gorgeous purple colour, almost fig-like and often very large. Some varieties can be mild, others, such as the chesnok, are high in sugars and have been declared the best for roasting. Here's a favourite roast garlic and pea soup from Nigel Slater's book Real Food.

Artichoke or Italian garlic
A group of bulgy, many-cloved types. Taste varies wildly with age and type, and green shoots may appear early in some of the cloves. These can be easily removed if you slice the clove in half from the top.

Black and smoked garlic
More fashionable in recent years, both are modern inventions. Black garlic is fermented at high temperature to give a sweet, yeasty taste that some cooks use to boost flavour. I have had no joy from it. Smoked garlic is generally made, like smoked fish, with oak chips – the process doesn't add any extra life to the bulb. But, roasted, its good spread on toast as a bruschetta.

Wild garlic
The lush sword-like leaves that grow in damp patches in British woodlands from early spring are the product of a different species of allium. But they're a lovely taste of the new season. You can use them, or the little white flower heads that arrive later in salad, stuff a roast chicken with them, or crush them into a pesto sauce with some basil and olive oil.


Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...oct/08/best-garlic-varieties-lidl-peel-cloves
 
I love garlic and know that there are plenty of different variaties of garlic because I grow my own when I can.

Hard stemmed garlic is garlic usually planted in the autumn to over winter and have established itself before soft stemmed garlic is even planted. It means that hard stemmed garlic often grows much larger bulbs than soft stemmed garlic does. Soft stemmed garlic, planted in the spring, is usually a fast growing garlic.

You can tell the type of garlic you have literally by how stiff the stem is in your dried garlic. On top of this, there are then plenty of varieties, just like there are with apples and pears, so your choice of garlic is often controlled by the supermarket but if you look at the label you will see the variety on the label.
 
@morning glory

Thank you very much for your informative mini guide on garlic varieties ..

Here the most common are the: Wild, Red or Spanish, the Rocambole violet and the White ..

Though black is often used as well with roasts and " hot pots " ( 1 dish stews ) .. And when grilling vegetables in oven ..

Have a lovely day ..
 
I absolutely love garlic. Rarely a day goes by without me using some in at least one meal, and the dog and the cats love it. (Before anyone comments, it is not toxic to animals in small quantities. Indeed some natural dog and cat medications contain garlic.) The bulbs I usually get are quite large, as are most of the cloves, and keeps well on the window sill. It comes mainly from south-west England. It has quite a strong flavour and is fantastic to cook with but a little bit too strong, in my opinion, to eat raw except in very small quantities. I also get wet garlic and wild garlic from the same place. The purple-streaked one is excellent too, and no, I didn't know it was called rocambole either.

I've very rarely seen garlic from the Isle of Wight (except when I went there, of course). I know in the past they used to export most of it but don't know if that is the case now. The garlic I bought from the supermarket today comes from Spain, as did all the other types of garlic they had, organic or not.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I was so close to picking garlic as my ingredient for the Recipe Challenge! Maybe the next winner will pick it? And, even if they don't, the odds are I'll use garlic in any recipe I make anyway. :laugh:
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Its interesting - there are an infinite number of recipes which use garlic but not so many where it is the dominant ingredient. There is the famous chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, of course and garlic bread, garlic butter.
 
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