Garlic is a prime ingredient

Garlic is an herb -- it is claimed to be good for you and to boost your immune system, but even so it tastes absolutely fantastic
Add garlic to just about any dish and it will enhance the flavours of the other ingredients

All parts of the garlic plant can be used to enhance the flavour of your dishes. 

Garlic bulbs, made up of cloves, tend to be most used. Split the bulb into individual cloves, remove the skins and use
Garlic shallots: whole young plants,  harvested as the plant begins to grow (generally towards the end of winter), can be chopped into any dish
Garlic scapes: the flower stems picked a few weeks prior to harvest of the bulbs, can be cooked as a green vegetable, pickled, added to stir fries, in fact in any dish

Suggestions for use of garlic:

• Of course, garlic is wonderful in all savoury vege dishes
  
• For any hors d'oevres: add grated garlic to improve the flavour
  
• Marinades thrive on the added complexity garlic gives the flavours
  
• For salads: a little raw garlic will add zing to ordinary ingredients -- lettuce is pretty plain without it
  or saute some chopped garlic and add that to your salad
  
• Salad dressings can also be made amazing with a little garlic, drop cloves into the dressing and refrigerate to let the flavours steep
  
• Rub cut garlic cloves over your steak, chops etc before cooking for added zest
  
• Pierce your roast and stuff a bit of garlic clove in the hole to give it that winning touch
  
• Add garlic cloves, shallots or scapes to the stuffing in your poultry
  
• Put garlic cloves or scapes in all your stews, casseroles and other slow cooked meals to enrich the flavours
  
• Add garlic cloves to your gravies and sauces 

Don't forget to hang a garlic braid or two in your kitchen to have it readily available for cooking
and to ward off zombies

Which garlic to use?

Garlics belong to families or groups called: Turban, Artichoke, Standard Purple Stripe, Silverskin, Creole and more
within the groups there are specific cultivars, for instance California white is an Artichoke; Dunganski  is a Standard Purple Stripe; Lokalen is a Silverskin; Monaro purple is a Turban.
Each group is said to have qualities which better suit particular culinary purposes, and each cultivar has its own unique flavour.
That said, all garlic is fantastic and you can use any garlic in any culinary application without risking spoiling the dish. It is said that the correct garlic will better enhance the flavours.
When you choose an Australian grown garlic for your cooking, you will find these advantages:

• it is fresher than imported garlic, usually sourced close to where you purchased it
• it generally has much stronger flavours, a little goes a long way
• it is grown on small farms where the garlic is, for the most part, treated with respect and not tumbled around and bruised
• varieties selected by small growers are more likely to have strong, complex flavours because they are not selected for their shelf life qualities, but for their culinary excellence
• the Braidwood Garlic Growers garlics are particularly suited to the cold winters of the Southern Tablelands which produce very complex, strong flavours
• using more than one garlic variety in a dish can introduce new elements to it. The Rocambole group of garlics is particularly suited to combining with other garlics even though it has its own unique flavour which can stand alone

Some of the strengths of some of the garlics we grow are mentioned on Our Garlic page


How much garlic to use?

We like to use lots of garlic. Any casserole will have up to a whole 100gm bulb. This may be a reflection of our culinary background. You can use as much or as little as you find improves the flavours of your dishes to your taste.