Darina Allen: How to get the best of garlic — and its unlikely journey into Irish cookery

"We have confited, roasted and sautéed the versatile bulb, even poached whole garlic heads and individual cloves to tease out different levels of flavour."

"Well, I certainly remember a time, it doesn’t seem so long ago either, when garlic was considered to be very exotic and somewhat weird."

In this article, we celebrate garlic, the beautiful bulb prompted by our excitement on receiving a recent delivery of gorgeous fat bulbs of new season garlic from a local farmer here in East Cork.

Traditionally, the bulbs were planted on the shortest day of the year and harvested on the longest day of the year, then dried and cured.