Using Baby Garlic (Green Garlic)

comments (2) April 9th, 2009 in Grow, In the Kitchen

Kate Frank, editor

8 users recommend

Good thing I planted too much garlic last fall. Wait. Is there such a thing as too much garlic?

Baby garlic in early spring.

Photo: Kate Geruntho Frank

Add Comment
Print

I just adore garlic. I love it so much that I planted about twenty cloves last fall and it's one of the things I'm really looking forward to harvesting this year. In fact, I've begun to harvest it already, even though it's only early April.

In late winter, when the first of my garlic plants poked up through the mulch in my little garlic bed I began to read anything I could find on growing garlic and using it in the kitchen. I eventually discovered a post about using baby garlic, or green garlic, on our sister site, FineCooking.com.

Baby garlic is simply young garlic that is harvested and used in cooking before it has a chance to grow up. So if you're impatient like I am, you can start using your crop in the spring instead of waiting till summer. The drawback, of course, is that you won't get the mature bulbs you planned for last year.

Many people who grow garlic the usual way also plant a bunch of cloves tightly together to use specifically as green garlic since the bulbs don't need much space to grow. You can also plant cloves in very early spring if you just want greens.

Since I have so many garlic plants, I was okay with sacrificing one last night to try with pasta. I loved it so much that I think I'll always plant extra garlic in the future so I can have it all spring. I am pretty sure that my husband thinks last night's dinner was one of the best dinners I've made in a long time. Was it the green garlic? I may never know.

Baby garlic's taste is pretty complex. At first I thought it might even be too mild for me, but it has a gentle bite that creeps up out of nowhere. You can use the greens in salads and dressings, soups, or you can even eat it raw. I'm definitely trying it next with bread and olive oil since raw garlic in oil can be a bit much.

My three favorites: Shallots, elephant garlic (which is actually a leek), and green garlic.