infused olive oil for all
Better late than never…
That should be the name for this whole recipe collection.
I’ve made plenty of dishes since November 26th, even taken pictures of a few of them. My intentions were good. But I cannot skip over Christmas time because there was a lot made and devoured on Park Street. The annual holiday party dishes, Christmas morning breakfast and drinks, all the recipes that were tried out using the amazing Christmas presents I received, and of course the infused olive oils that I made as gifts this year.
It was an idea that I found on Pinterest, of course, and decided would make perfect gifts for some family members. It’s an easy + inexpensive gift that is useful! Can’t beat that. There are 2 down sides that I found: 1. It is time consuming, which isn’t a real a down side. 2. It fills the house with the scent of oil, which I cannot stand. That is definitely on my top 10 dislikes list.
I chose to make 3 infusions: garlic, rosemary, chili.
GARLIC
ingredients:
4 to 6 heads of garlic*
juice from 1 lime
2 to 3 C. extra virgin olive oil, or enough to cover the cloves*
*the amount of garlic and oil depends on how much you want to make
directions:
1. preheat oven to 325 F.
2. peel and crack each clove of the garlic.
3. put the cloves in a bowl with the lime juice and mix it up, then let sit for 15 minutes.
4. drain the lime juice from the cloves and save the juice for later
5. spread out the garlic cloves in a single layer in a glass casserole dish.
6. pour enough olive oil over the garlic so that the cloves are completely immersed.
7. roast in the over for 45 minutes.
8. remove from the oven and let cool for a bit before you touch it.
9. scoop the cloves from the oil into a bowl using a slotted spoon.
10. pour the reserved lime juice over the cloves with ½ cup oil and stir to combine.
11. divvy the cloves into your oil jars and pour the olive oil in.
I followed the recipe on MJ’s Kitchen for the garlic oil. Because the combination of oil and garlic can promote the growth of C. botulinum bacteria, it is important to follow the procedures of providing an acidic environment (hence the lime), roasting it, and keeping it in the fridge (for up to 2 months). MJ has some safety notes on her site about this, as well as some interesting kitchen notes and benefits.
CHILI
ingredients:
1 T. red chili flakes
1/2 to 1 whole, dried pepper (I cut a pepper in half and added it to the jar for visual appeal – I don’t happen to remember the type of pepper, I just bought a bag of them at Safeway)
1 C. olive oil
directions:
1. pour chili flakes into the bottle + add 1/2 or whole pepper.
2. in a sauce pan, heat olive oil until you see tiny bubbles start to form, but do not let it start smoking.
3. pour warm oil into the bottle over the chili flakes + pepper .
ROSEMARY
ingredients:
3-4 rosemary sprigs
1 C. olive oil
directions:
1. add rosemary into the bottle.
2. in a sauce pan, heat olive oil until you see tiny bubbles start to form, but do not let it start smoking.
3. pour warm oil into the bottle over the chili flakes + pepper .
My rosemary oil became cloudy overtime. I read that when stored in the fridge it will do this and after sitting out at room temp it will begin to clear up.
All of the oils should be corked and stored in the fridge, just to be safe.
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