Easy recipe, step by step.

Caramelized onion has become a usual ingredient in our dishes, it´s essential to give a distinctive touch to the most traditional recipes.

In the case of caramelized or confit garlic it´s less popular in the kitchen, although it is a healthy and tasty way to enjoy a especial touch in our dishes, and at the same time we can mitigate the strong flavour of garlic.

The process to caramelize garlics is extremely simple and, unlike caramelized onion, we don´t need to add any sugar. This way we get a healthy yet tasty version of traditional garlic; ready to be part of our recipes.

Let´s get down to business. The most important thing when preparing caramelized garlic is to select top quality products. We only need clove garlic and olive oil. Needless to say that purple garlic, typical of the region of Cuenca, is the best option for this recipe. The intense flavour of this variety stands out over the rest.

So first we take a bulb of garlic and we separate the cloves. Then we heat 200ml of olive oil in a saucepan. It´s very important that oil doesn´t boil so we´ll try to keep a regular temperature all the time.

Once the oil is heating up we add the garlic cloves in whole. For this recipe, we can use peeled or unpeeled garlic cloves but once they are caramelized we´ll have to peel them if we haven´t done it previously.

Cooking time is around 45 minutes, stirring now and them to make sure the garlic cloves are cooked thoroughly.

We can also prepare these caramelized garlic cloves in the oven. For this we only have to use the same quantity of oil and garlic cloves (in this case unpeeled preferably), in an oven safe bowl and have them there for one hour at 150ᵒC temperature.

Once the garlic cloves have a soft and creamy texture, they are caramelized and ready to be used in our dishes. These garlics are perfect to give a special touch to our recipes such as cold soups like “gazpacho” and “salmorejo”, or with meat and fish. We can prepare them and preserve them in a glass jar to have them always handy.

One trick to aromatize these caramelized garlics and create different flavours and scents is to put in the glass jar where you preserve them a little rosemary or thyme. For hot spices lovers, you can put a couple of cayenne peppers.