Sunday Nite Dinner

We love garlic and use it in just about every savory dish we make. We also cook in mass quantities and I always dread peeling the garlic. I hate it when my fingers get sticky from the garlic juice and the skins stick to my finger. It’s not a difficult task. It’s just mundane.

We recently discovered Trader Joe’s The Emperor’s New Cloves — one clove per head garlic. It’s super easy to peel and doesn’t have a sticky skin. I’m guesstimating one clove of this garlic is about five to six normal cloves of garlic. It’s sold in a little wicker basket and contains six heads of garlic for $1.69.

As far as taste, it’s a little milder than white-bulb American garlic. And it’s perfect for roasting. It’s so much easier and better than roasting normal heads of garlic. You don’t have to deal with all the skin, squeezing and mess. The roasted one clove per head garlic is just one big lump of sweet, mellow garlic!

To roast the garlic, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap it in aluminum foil, place the heads in a muffin pan, and bake at 375°F for 40-45 minutes, or until the cloves are soft.

I’ll never go back to roasting normal heads of garlic again. Trader Joe’s The Emperor’s New Cloves completely rock!

Update Jan 25th, 2008: I contacted Trader Joe’s and asked them what the garlic varietal is. They didn’t answer my question, but I did get this response…

Chuck,

We appreciate your feedback and inquiry. Here is some direct information from our supplier about this special garlic.

In every harvest season, amongst thousands and thousands of garlic bulbs grown, very few garlic bulbs are produced with only one clove by mother nature and no one knows why and how!

Since one needs to plant one clove to get a garlic bulb, there is no logical and economical justification to plant one clove and still get one clove back after 9 months. That is why there is not even the possibility of attempting to intentionally grow this type of garlic.

Therefore, due to its scarcity, it was always gifted to and consumed by the kings and emperor’s of different dynasties through out the Chinese history. To the best of our knowledge, there is no difference in taste with other garlic types with many cloves (the usual multi-clove garlic).

Sincerely,
Amy Trader Joe’s
Customer Relations

After a little research, we discovered that single clove garlic is often referred to as garlic rounds and even garlic onions. Via Gourmet Garlic Gardens…

"…garlic rounds. As garlic goes through the development underground from a clove to a fully cloved bulb, it first swells into a large round undivided ball with a lot of wrappers that are almost fused together. As it grows, it begins to divide and sub-divide into as many cloves as it can before the heat causes it to lose its leaves. If the temperature increases before the garlic has time to divide, then the result is a large undivided round. Every time we harvest we find some of them. If replanted as is in the fall, they will form large fully divided bulbs the following spring. These rounds have the same taste and other properties as the clove they came from. Mild tasting garlics yield mild tasting rounds and strong garlics result in strong tasting rounds. For spring planting, rounds are your best bet to produce a good size bulb by the time early summer heat forces maturity."

If you are really interested in single clove garlic, check out this interesting discussion.

Update Jan 30th, 2008: I visited my local Trader Joe’s this morning and sadly they’re no longer stocking The Emperor’s New Cloves garlic. The garlic is grown in China and after talking to several employees, they told me that Trader Joe’s is no longer carrying products grown in China, due to customer concerns.

I asked them if they would stock the single clove garlic again if they found a non-Chinese supplier. And their answer was most likely. I’m a little bummed out because I love the product. I’m going to contact Trader Joe’s and ask them to find another supplier ASAP. If you also like the single clove garlic, send Trader Joe’s a request to bring it back.

[tags]trader joe’s, garlic, clove, roasted[/tags]