Smoked Garlic

[Socrates]

I'm smoking tomorrow and I thought I'd throw a few garlic heads in and smoke them too. Has anybody tried this? Any advice?

Soc.

[culinary bear]

I usually hot smoke sinlge cloves over a wok using black tea as the smoking medium...

For heads I'd recommend removing all the extra papery stuff from around the head so as to give the smoke a much better go at penetrating the garlic as much as possible; you might even go so far as to just leave the individual cloves attached to the base but remove the central stalk and all the associated paper.

soaking the de-papered heads for a few minutes in cold water will also give you some protection against scorching.

[fifi]

OH WOW! I have got to try this. My smoker is going right now and I actually found some good garlic last night. Would you lop the tops of off the heads like I do when oven roasting. Soaking in water sounds like a good idea.

[culinary bear]

would I lop off the heads?

personally no... but that's because I wouldn't want too much of the garlicky goodness to seep out of the cloves as you smoke them...

I'd leave the skins on the cloves intact, but remove all the other paper.

If it's new season's fresh garlic, you might get away with smoking them untouched, but in my experience all that gives is non-smoked gsrlic inside smoky garlic skin.

what I tend to do is bash the heads into cloves, keeping the skins on, and then thread the individual cloves along a (soaked) bamboo skewer until you have a head's worth on a skewer, before smoking them in the normal way... much better smoke penetration.

[fifi]

That makes sense. Ok... I have this cute little stainless steel mushroom shaped thingy just for bashing garlic cloves. A-bashing I will go. If I can't find my bamboo skewers can I just put them into a little pan?

[culinary bear]

yes, but you'll be reducing the smoke exposure - it would be better to put them on a grille of some sort.

[fifi]

Ah... I have just the thing. Thanks.

[ElfWorks]

i smoke garlic whenever i have the smoker going. i do garlic shish-ka-bob. i de-paper em, peel em then thread a skewer with them. i always do a couple of heads thinking i can use em for a week or so. i never have had any beyond breakfast the next morning!!!!!

lisa

[col klink]

This is a fantastic idea. I can't wait for it to get above freezing here in Minnesota to try it out!