A little garlic story to get you in the mood.
Mother's Day was last Sunday, and we spent it in the kitchen. Here are three recipes that made it worth the effort, because there is no better way to spend the day than feeding the people who matter most to you.
The Starter: Havuc Tarator (Turkish Carrot and Garlic Yogurt Dip)
This is the most popular recipe on our site, and for good reason. It is a Turkish staple: sweet roasted carrots, sharp raw garlic, thick yogurt, and a drizzle of olive oil. It tastes complex but takes about twenty minutes.
The raw garlic here is the backbone of the dish. You want it pressed or very finely minced so it disperses fully into the yogurt rather than sitting in chunks. A good garlic press is the right tool for this. It crushes the clove completely, releasing the oils and producing that clean, pungent flavour that makes the dip sharp and alive.
Ingredients (serves 4): 500g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped, 4 cloves of garlic, pressed, 300g thick Greek yogurt, 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra to serve, 1 teaspoon cumin, salt to taste, and a small handful of fresh dill or mint to finish.
Roast the carrots at 200C with a drizzle of oil and a pinch of cumin until soft and slightly caramelised, around 25 minutes. Leave them to cool for ten minutes, then blend until smooth. Fold the blended carrot into the yogurt along with the pressed garlic. Season well. Transfer to a bowl, drizzle with good olive oil, and scatter over fresh herbs. Serve with warm flatbread or crusty bread on the side. Find the full recipe on our site.
The Side: Crunchy Garlic Chips
These take five minutes to make and improve almost anything you put them on. Fried garlic chips have a nuttiness and crunch that raw and roasted garlic simply do not. They are excellent scattered over pasta, soup, salad, or the mashed potato below.
The key is slicing the garlic thinly and evenly so everything cooks at the same rate. This is where a garlic chopper earns its place. Even, thin slices are what you need here, and doing that consistently by hand across a full head of garlic is fiddly. The chopper does it in seconds.
Ingredients: 1 full head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled, 4 tablespoons of neutral oil (sunflower or vegetable), and a pinch of flaky salt.
Slice the garlic cloves as thinly and evenly as possible. Heat the oil in a small pan over a medium-low heat. Add the garlic slices in a single layer. Watch them carefully. They will turn from pale to golden in around two to three minutes. The moment they are golden, lift them out with a slotted spoon and spread them on a piece of kitchen roll. They will crisp up as they cool. Season with flaky salt immediately. Store in an airtight container if you are making them ahead.
The Main: Roasted Garlic Mashed Potato
Roasted garlic is a different ingredient to raw garlic. The heat converts the sharpness into something sweet, nutty, and deeply savoury. Squeezed into mashed potato it disappears into the butter and cream and makes the whole thing taste richer than it has any right to.
This is what the garlic roaster is built for. Roasting a whole head in the oven works, but a dedicated roaster concentrates the heat and produces a more evenly cooked, more intensely flavoured result. You get cloves that are completely soft and almost jammy, which mash into the potato without any effort.
Ingredients (serves 4): 1kg floury potatoes (Maris Piper or King Edward), peeled and cut into chunks, 1 whole head of garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, 80g butter, 100ml double cream or whole milk, warmed, salt and white pepper.
Place the whole head of garlic in the roaster with a drizzle of olive oil. Roast at 190C for 35 to 40 minutes until the cloves are completely soft. While the garlic is roasting, boil the potatoes in well-salted water until tender, around 20 minutes. Drain and leave to steam dry for two minutes. Once the garlic is cool enough to handle, squeeze the cloves out of their skins. They should come out as a soft paste. Mash the potatoes until smooth, then beat in the butter, warm cream, and roasted garlic paste. Season generously with salt and white pepper. Serve immediately.
The Meal, Together
Start with the dip and bread while the garlic roasts. Make the mashed potato as the main, scatter the garlic chips over the top, and you have a meal built around three different versions of the same ingredient. It holds together well, it does not require military-level timing, and the garlic is the point of all of it.
If you want the right tools for these recipes, the garlic press, chopper, and roaster are all in the shop.
Recipes serve 4. The Havuc Tarator can be made the day before and kept in the fridge. The garlic chips keep for up to three days in an airtight container.
