Country Boy grows a lot of garlic. The problem with growing this much though, is that we find that it rots before we can use it all. Naturally enough, we wanted to find a way to preserve the garlic so that we can use it through out the year.
Last year we bottled some garlic cloves and they were fantastic for using in cooking throughout the year. Unfortunately though, we ran out well before our next garlic crop was ready. This year, we are preserving even more. Hopefully we will have enough to last us until next harvest. I love that we always have garlic ready to use on hand.
You will need:
1 kg of garlic
500ml white wine vinegar
2T salt
Jars
1. The first step is to skin all the garlic. The easiest way to do this is to break the garlic head into individual cloves, and then place the whole thing into a large bowl. Place a second bowl (the same size) upside down over the top, and then shake the heck out of it for a minute.
It will then look like this:
2. The papery skins will loosen and fall off some of the cloves, and it will be a lot easier to remove the remainder of the skins. Peel all the cloves.
3. Boil a saucepan of water, and then blanch the peeled garlic for a minute, then run the cloves under cold water, and let them to drain. This stops the garlic going a spectacular turquoise blue colour (which is harmless but unattractive).
4. Stuff the cloves into some sterilized jars.
5. Heat the vinegar and salt together, and then pour over the garlic. Seal the jars while the filling is still hot.
6. The garlic will be ready in about a month. Just take them out of the jar and use in cooking in the same way you would use fresh garlic.
Can u put the ingredients in my measurmets? Dont understand kilamaters.
Do you refrigerate the jars?
No. If you hot fill them and seal them straight away they will be shelf stable. We are have jars which are 2 years old, and are still fine to eat!
I should add, that once we open them, we do keep the jar in the fridge.
You don’t water bath or pressure can it
No. Between the blanching, the vinegar and salt, and the hot filling of the jars, they stay preserved for a while. We normally do enough for 12 months at a time, and they are always still good when we use them a year later.
How long will they last stored? Do they need to be processed for longer term storage?
They will last at least 12 months, or longer. The only trick is to make sure that the vinegar is hot when you put it in the jar and seal it.