Springtime for Garlic

Saucyman,

My garlic appears to be sprouting, is it still good?

It is still edible, but it might not be good. The green sprouts that inch their way out of the cloves are bitter tasting. While garlic is available ‘fresh’ year around, the stragglers found in the store at the end of winter are often lacking: desiccated and mealy, the garlic flavor is diminished and occasionally there is a slightly rancid aftertaste.

If a trip to the store is a hardship, you can and should, surgically cut out the sprouting portion of the plant. Gently sautéing the garlic, in a little olive oil or delicious, delicious butter until the clove softens and browns, neutralizes some of the bite of older garlic. Like all other things, food is only as good as the ingredients you use and it is best to pick up another head as time allows.

Garlic sprouts due to exposure to daylight and the heads should be stored in a dark, cool dry place – cupboard or the specially designed and designated porous, humidity regulating terra cotta pots. Experience tells me that garlic is more apt to start sprouting towards springtime, I can find no factual or internet confirmation for this observation; so I will downgrade this belief from fact to opinion. While that pre-bundled 4 pack from Trader Joe's seems like a value, it isn’t if you don’t do use it before it sprouts - buy garlic in small, manageable quantities.

Garlic essentially comes in three flavors: the mild elephant, the common white and the small compact heads of the fiery purple rocambole. Between February and early summer there is an additional option of spring or green garlic. The plant is yanked from the soil before the head forms, leaving something that looks like a fat scallion…not so much a substitute for regular garlic, as it is a seasonal treat, spring garlic is subtly flavored with hints of both garlic and onion. For a few months a year, the milder form of the allium plant can be married to foods that can normally be overwhelmed by garlic.



Spring garlic is an excellent match with brook trout. The easiest preparation would be to leave the head on the fish, place trimmed strands of garlic into the cleaned cavity and bake. A slightly more complicated but utterly elegant version of trout, involves filleting the trout and cooking in delicious, delicious butter with the garlic on the stovetop.

Trout & Spring Garlic

2 whole trout, head removed and filleted
5-8 pieces of spring garlic
6 Tablespoons butter
Salt & pepper

Melt butter in a 12-inch pan over medium low heat. Prepare garlic by removing the roots and cutting off the green ends – leaving only about an inch of green remaining on the stalk – cut in half lengthwise and add to melted butter and cook slowly for 5 minutes or until garlic goes limp.

Turn heat to medium, season the fillets and add the fish skin side down to the pan. Depending on the thickness and freshness of the fish, how well the pan conducts heat and what your stove considers ‘medium’, this should take 10 minutes. Consider the fish cooked when the flesh starts to flake towards the middle of the fish and the delicious, delicious butter turns a lovely, lovely nutty brown.



Remove from pan, place sautéed garlic on top of fillet and spoon butter over the top. Fresh lemon or orange juice squeezed on top adds a nice contrast. Spring asparagus and either red potatoes or saffron rice are great accompaniments.