Pickled Garlic

At its simplest, you can pickle garlic in red or white wine vinegar and salt. But for a more flavoursome pickle, try our recipe below - or be inventive and add your own favourite spices to the mix!

INGREDIENTS

3 garlic bulbs, separated into cloves. The amount will vary slightly depending on the size of your garlic.

700 ml vinegar, eg: white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or cider vinegar

1 teaspoon pure salt (not table salt, which has anti-caking additives that will make the brine cloudy)

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

3 all spice berries

1 whole dried chilli, or 0.5 teaspoon chilli flakes

sprig fresh basil

Sterilised 500ml jar

METHOD

1.Blanch the garlic cloves in boiling water for one minute. This will loosen the papery skins and allow you to slip them off easily, once cool.

2.Measure all the spices into a sterilised jar

3.Add the garlic cloves

4.Boil the vinegar, then pour it over the garlic cloves

5.Seal the jar and leave to cool overnight, before refrigerating.

Pickled cloves can be used in place of fresh garlic. Or try using them to stuff pitted olives, served alongside cheese canapés, added to Mediterranean stews, mashed into potato with olive oil, or served alongside other zingy palate cleansers at a raclette dinner. The brine also makes a fantastic base to salad dressings, when you have eaten all your pickled garlic.

Can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 weeks, if kept in an airtight container/jar, and recipe is followed as above.