To make good garlic bread, start with fresh garlic

McClatchy Newspapers

Garlic bread adds a nice touch to any Italian meal.

Garlic is a strong-flavored cousin to onions, shallots, leeks and chives. It grows underground and releases most of its flavor once it has been crushed, chopped, pressed or pureed. Here are tips for buying and storing fresh garlic from Bon App tit.

How to buy: Look for firm, plump bulbs with dry skin. Avoid bulbs with shriveled skins, sprouting or skins that cover the cloves loosely (an indication that the garlic has dried out and shrunk).

How to store: You do not need to store garlic in the refrigerator. Keep it in an open container in a cool, dark spot. Unbroken bulbs can last 2 months, but cloves broken from the bulb keep for only a few days. If your garlic starts to sprout a little, it’s OK to use it, but cut out the green sprout because it has a bitter taste.

How to prepare garlic: To separate a whole head of garlic quickly, wrap it in a dish towel and give it a good thwack with a heavy frying pan. The cloves will fall away from each other easily, and the dish towel will keep them together and prevent them from getting bruised.

To remove the skin from a clove, place the clove on a cutting board and hit it with the flat side of a chef’s knife just enough to bruise it. After that, the peel will come off easily.

Some recipes will ask you to mash garlic to a paste in a bowl or mortar. Try mashing the garlic with a chef’s knife. Put a chopped clove and coarse salt on a cutting board. With the blade at a 45-degree angle to the work surface, bear down on the garlic and salt. Use the same motion you would to butter bread, twisting your wrist and using the top half of the knife blade. Mash on, and soon you’ll have a creamy paste.

To roast cloves: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place unpeeled cloves in a single layer in a small ovenproof dish. Drizzle some olive oil and a tablespoon of water over the garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Cover the dish with foil. Bake garlic until it is tender, about 50 minutes. Peel cloves and mash as needed, or, for a puree, put them in a food -processor and through a sieve.

ROASTED GARLIC

6 heads garlic

1‚Ñ4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove any loose skin from garlic heads and cut a 1‚Ñ4-inch slice off tops, exposing tips of cloves. Set garlic heads cut side up on sheet of aluminum foil and sprinkle with olive oil and salt. Wrap heads in foil and roast until tender, about 45 minutes. Let cool before peeling.

From Every Day With Rachael Ray

GARLIC BREAD

1 to 2 teaspoons roasted garlic puree, or more if desired

1 stick butter, melted

1‚Ñ3 cup olive oil

Salt

1 loaf (1 pound) French bread

4 ounces Parmesan cheese, cut in chunks and grated

Parsley, fresh or dried, optional

Combine garlic puree with melted butter, olive oil and pinch of salt. Slice bread in half lengthwise. Spread cut halves with garlic mixture.

Bake bread in preheated 400 degree oven about 10 minutes, or until topping is bubbly and edges of the bread start to brown.

Remove bread from oven; sprinkle immediately with the grated Parmesan and parsley.