Confit garlic — cloves cooked slowly in oil at low temperature until completely tender and sweet — appears across Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking as both an ingredient and a condiment. The technique transforms raw garlic's pungent, sharp character into something mellow, sweet, almost nutty. Ottolenghi uses it throughout as a background seasoning that provides garlic depth without garlic sharpness.
Garlic cloves (peeled or unpeeled) submerged in olive oil and cooked at very low temperature — 90–100°C — until completely tender, sweet, and golden. The oil absorbs the garlic flavour and becomes as valuable as the cloves themselves. [VERIFY temperature]
Confit garlic squeezed from its skin is one of the most versatile condiments in the kitchen — spread on bread, stirred into hummus, mashed into butter, dropped into braises. Its sweetness is the opposite of raw garlic's sharpness. The two forms of the same ingredient are entirely different flavour tools.
- Temperature must stay below 120°C — higher temperatures fry the garlic rather than confit it, producing a different (though still delicious) result - Time: minimum 45 minutes for full sweetness development [VERIFY time] - The oil is garlic-infused and equally valuable — use it for dressings, bread, pasta - Storage: submerged in the oil in the refrigerator — the oil preserves the cloves for weeks [VERIFY safety: garlic-in-oil can support botulism growth above 4°C; refrigeration is essential]
OTTOLENGHI JERUSALEM — Technique Entries OT-01 through OT-25