Garlic Confit

 

Garlic confit is easy to make, and a great comfort food. It can be used as a condiment, smear, or in recipes. Cooking garlic in oil leads toa  sweeter garlic that will stay preserved for several days.

Ingredients

• Garlic cloves, peeled, with the dry bits cut off

• Butter

• Sea Salt to taste

• (Optional) Rosemary, thyme, or whatever herb floats your goat.

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven, toaster oven, or air fryer to 300F/150C.
2. Choose a pan that suits the amount of garlic you have. I used a bread loaf pan for this batch. In a single layer, arrange your peeled garlic cloves. They can touch and overlap a bit, but the more layers, the more butter you need.
3. Add salt to taste. I recommend starting with 1/4 tsp. per stick of unsalted butter/110g and adding any additional at the end. If your butter is salted, skip this step and only add at the end.
4. Cut your butter into smaller chunks so it will melt easier, and use enough that when it melts your garlic is submerged. I start with 1 stick/113g and add more it needed after 5 minutes of baking. Garlic should be fully submerged in the melted butter.
5. Bake for 45 minutes or more, until garlic is soft to touch with fork or chopstick, and some lovely caramelized bits have appeared.
6. Serve warm on whatever you like, smearing the garlic. Here you see it on toast with a sprinkle of sea salt and parsley added. I have also chilled it and used it under the skin of chicken and turkey, and as my garlic bread based (just top with cheese).
7. Cool and store in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, reheating however much you like as needed int he microwave or air fryer/toaster oven. It can go longer, as the confit process is a preserving technique, but if you have any left at that point it's up to you how brave you are!

For those who aren't in the know, butter in Korea is frequently cut with other oils, and if you grab the wrong brand it will absolutely destroy your baking. You need to pay attention to the ingredients or buy foreign butter. I like Korean butter for making quick breads or replacing oil in recipes where I don't want the flavor of canola or sunflower coming through, but not much else!

Confits are quite versatile. You can do this with any oil, but butter or olive oil is recommended. Try it with cherry tomatoes or onions as well. 

I happened to be shopping at Homeplus when I saw several bags on peeled garlic on end-of-day clearance for super cheap (under 2500KRW, so about 1.75 USD). I never take too many bags of reduced food, because I don't want to take the food out of the mouths of pensioners, but these were slightly ugly but still good, and I had some sub-par Homeplus butter at home to use up, so I knew I had to make confit.