Garlic has been part of my life from an early age. Swaths of wild garlic grew in the woods near our house every spring and I remember the thrill of finding it with my father. Years later I discovered that garlic had a season and that the fresh white shoots of new garlic in the summer were different from the tired old cloves that we cooked with during the rest of the year.
Later I came across the Mediterranean’s love affair with garlic on my language student exchanges. In France I discovered wet garlic (or new season’s garlic), which looks like great, fat spring onions. The bulbs are in greengrocers and supermarkets now, but will be “wet” only for a month or so before they are semi-dried, as we are used to buying them. Wet garlic has a sweet, aromatic flavour and can be used like celery, carrot and onion in stocks, soups and stews, or chopped up in quiches, tarts and stir-fries. Drizzle it with olive oil and roast in the oven with lemon zest and thyme and eat with soft cheese and a baguette.
If you can’t get hold of the wet garlic, now is the time to enjoy any type of garlic you can get your hands on. Forget the notion of stinky breath; young garlic has none of the sharp, acrid flavour of old garlic. Slow cook it with onions in plenty of olive oil to release the sugars and you will have a delicious base for a tomato sauce or a spring vegetable soup.
Pound it with fresh herbs and lemon juice and you have a herby sauce that transforms almost any food.
New potato, chorizo and new season’s garlic tortilla Serves 4
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This is a really fast supper to throw together, but if you have a little extra time, double the recipe and take it into work the next day.
Ingredients
500ml olive oil 500g new potatoes, scrubbed and cut roughly into small, bite-size chunks 1 large Spanish onion, sliced 6 spring onions, sliced 6-8 cloves of new season’s garlic, finely sliced, or 2-3 cloves of normal garlic 140g chorizo sausage, casing removed and roughly chopped 6 eggs Salt and pepper
Method
1 Heat the olive oil in a 25cm non-stick frying pan. Add potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Allow the pieces of potato to gently simmer or confit in the oil so that they soften without browning. Stir occasionally to stop the pieces sticking to the sides of the pan.
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2 Add onions, garlic and a pinch of salt, and continue cooking until potatoes are soft and beginning to break up. Strain the mixture in a sieve, reserving the oil, which you can use again for cooking. Add the chorizo to a hot frying pan and cook for about 4 minutes. Drain off excess fat.
3 In a large bowl whisk the eggs with a pinch of salt and pepper until smooth. Add potatoes and onions. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the frying pan and add the egg mixture. As the mixture starts to thicken the edges should start to set. Shake the pan gently so the tortilla does not stick. Add the chorizo, gently pushing it into the egg mixture with a spatula.
4 When the sides are slightly golden, invert a large plate over the frying pan and quickly flip the plate and the pan so the tortilla is on the plate. Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Gently slide the tortilla back into the pan, uncooked side down, and carry on cooking for 3 minutes. The middle of the tortilla will be firm when it is cooked.
5 Slide the tortilla on to a clean plate and cool to room temperature.