Garlic Italy’s Darling Ingredient
from Italian Traditional Food

Garlic Is A Popular Addition To Almost Any Dish

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Easily one of the most loved and appreciated additions to any dish is Garlic. This clove of aromatic goodness can be found in any grocery store or farmers market. The use of garlic to enhance a recipe has been going on for centuries, and it is perhaps one of the most widely used ingredients in a recipe known today.

When you use a garlic clove to cook, it is usually the first of the main ingredients that go into the recipe. This is because it allows the garlic to seep throughout the dish while cooking, giving the recipe all that the garlic has to offer. While some countries use this ingredient mildly to accentuate a dish, the Italians use it as a main staple or ingredient in many of their fine recipes.

Different Cloves

What many people may not know, is that there are actually a few different types of garlic that are available to you to work with. The most common of all the forms of garlic are the hard neck cloves, these cloves will be found in the grocery store in the vegetable section and are anything but hard to spot or smell.

These white bulbs come in various sizes, but the smell is unmistakable. Usually these hard neck cloves contain approximately 12 separate cloves per bulb, and it has a very strong smell.

The soft neck garlic bulbs are less common in the grocery store. This is not to say that you will not find them there, it is more likely however that you will find them in a specialty store or small Italian food boutique.

When you see these soft neck garlic bulbs, they are usually braided at the ends and hung as a group or batch. There are actually a few more garlic types such as the Elephant garlic, or the shoot version more often found in places such as Russia but the bulb versions are most common and most used in Italian recipes.

Like Everything Else Fresh Is Best

When it comes to Italian cooking, just like everything else fresh is best. This is why it is best to buy fresh unpeeled garlic, and either thinly slicing or mince at the time of recipe need. While it may seem like a convenient and simple way to obtain and keep garlic for future use, buying pre-minced jars of garlic is anything but a good idea.

To be honest, you do not know where this garlic originated from or when it was picked. This is a mere mild question in comparison to how it was prepared or what type of chemical was added to the jar to keep the garlic preserved.

If at all possible, always make it a point to purchase garlic per need and not for saved and remedial use. While this may seem like a pain, your recipe and your family will thank you for the difference in the meal that you will get with the fresh garlic.

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