Roasting Garlic

• Garlic
• Olive oil

If you have a little terracotta garlic roaster like the one pictured, use it, otherwise, make a foil pouch and use that.

If you're not using a terracotta garlic roaster, pre-heat your oven to 375F. If you are, then you want to start it off in a cold oven.

You can peel the individual cloves if you want, but it is sufficient to leave the bulb whole, peel off the outermost layers of skin, and use a sharp knife to cut off the dried end where the roots were.

Pour a little olive oil into the tray of your roaster, and place the bulb, cut end down, in it, then drizzle a little olive oil over the top and put the lid on, or fold the foil over to enclose the oil and garlic. You can add salt, pepper, and herbs too, if you want.

Bake the garlic in the middle of the oven for 40–50 minutes.

Take it out of the oven and, when it's cool enough to handle, squeeze the roasted goodness out of each clove.

You can do this with store-bought pre-peeled garlic too, but you'll need to cut 10 minutes off the cooking time, and it won't be quite as good.