spiced garlic confit

ingredients

• As much garlic as you want
• Olive oil
• 1 star anise
• Peppercorns

potato kind of weekend

In this economy, I shouldn't complain about having a job, but man is it soul-crushing sometimes. I've taken sick leave here and there from the odd cold, yet I've never felt more ill than when I'm in the office. The millennial gray desk dividers and cabinets. The ever-present smell of printer ink and dusty carpets. A singular microwave and broken fridge to serve a workspace that seats fifty. Truly a work environment that inspires and moves hearts.

Maybe I'm just a spoiled baby about a perfectly fine workplace because it's nothing compared to the comfort of my home, but whatever the cause, the end result is that I've been loath to leave my apartment. This past long weekend had some nice temps and shining sun, and still I spent most of my time draped over my couch like a throw blanket. To begin with, most of the usual outdoor appeals aren't so appealing in the middle of January. You stack that against all my worldly possessions at home, it's no contest. Maybe if I'd been aware of the ice storm soon to hit DC, I want to think I'd have gone out to soak up as much sun as possible before this week-long siege of freezing cold, but I doubt it would've moved the needle much.

Speaking of soaking up sun, I've made some good progress with my newest houseplants. I've recently dipped my toes into the wonderful world of caudiciform plants, and I do adore their chunky potato-like forms. They store water and nutrients in their swollen stems/roots, called caudexes, and this allows them to endure suboptimal conditions better than a typical tropical houseplant. Because of that, I wasn't too fearful of ordering them by mail, and though I had to prune off some foliage that had turned brown from cold exposure, they've bounced back quite well.

The caudexes of these particular plants are slow to grow, much slower than what you'd expect from a houseplant. If my care is suboptimal, they could take up to a decade to double in size. And you know what? That's okay. Hobbies like this aren't about meeting shareholder expectations of productivity. I'm sure as hell not getting any outdoor walks done in this freezing weather, so I might as well chill with my fat little plants and undertake an exercise in patience.

carbonara heresy

My area has a prime location for farmers' markets and craft fairs, so I've been able to snag some pretty cool pottery for the kitchen. The one that kicked things off is this garlic keeper, or what I lovingly refer to as "garlic jail." Previously I'd rush to peel all the cloves and drown them in a refrigerated jar of distilled white vinegar; before that I'd just leave them to dry into moldy husks inside the back of a pantry shelf. The jail container is compact and can be left on the counter without being obtrusive, so any time I do food prep, I get a visual cue and am reminded to check the jail for any prisoners.

My rounds on MLK weekend led me to discover a problem: I had too much garlic. The dishes I'd made recently didn't rely on it for seasoning, so my usual bulk purchase of three heads had been sitting undisturbed in jail for two weeks. They were still decent, but another week and I'd have to contemplate a lifetime sentence of vinegar drowning.

What to do? I considered making the viral pasta with 40 cloves of garlic, only to be paywalled. I thought about making toum, then realized I didn't have any flatbreads or crackers to be dipped into the sauce. I could make garlic confit, but my go-to tiny saucepan (smaller diameter means less oil needed) was crusted with blackened meat bits and still soaking in the sink.

No problem. I was thinking five steps ahead five days ago when I purchased a set of ramekins on my monthly Wegmans pilgrimage. The garlic confit dream was not only doable, it was actually optimal because I had a great opportunity to do a test bake with the new ramekins.

Garlic confit is arguably at its peak when used as a spread for toasted breads like crostini, but I didn't have any on hand. I was also too dedicated to being a homebody to consider walking to the grocery store. What I did have was oodles of pasta, and that was a perfect substitution in my brain. A carb is a carb, no?

I'd already been having a generational run of cooking substitutions, in my latest efforts to leave no leftover ingredient unused, and pasta for bread catalyzed an avalanche of connections in my hunt for a perfect garlic confit companion. The first thing I thought of was a cheese-based sauce; I'd met my tomato sauce quota last week with several iterations of beef ragu, and there was still lots of grated parmesan left for me to consume. If it's parm, then it's alfredo, was my first thought – until I thought of the unopened jar of basil alfredo in my pantry. Better to put that flavor profile on the backburner, for novelty's sake.

Second on my list was carbonara. I could kill two birds with one stone by incorporating eggs that had sat for weeks in my fridge, except it didn't usually use garlic for aromatics. The next idea was going basic and making cacio e pepe – but the eggs, the damn eggs! My mind couldn't let go of the euphoria from making a great connection between two big leftovers, and it was throwing my rationality out of whack. Fine, we ignore the Italian cuisine fandom and add garlic confit to the carbonara!

I'd already whisked together the carbonara sauce when I realized I was missing guanciale, and that didn't even matter because the garlic took its place seamlessly in both the chronology of preparation and the wavelength of aroma. After breaking up the cloves on the pan, they melded seamlessly into the creamy sauce. The last-minute addition of days-old chopped scallion was the literal cherry on top of an insane Ship of Theseus–esque culinary heist.

And honestly? The dish was a beaut, as all sins are wont to be.

instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 215°F.
2. Peel garlic cloves. (Optional: For better taste and texture, use a knife to slice off the bottom portion with the stem.)
3. Add garlic, star anise, and peppercorns to an oven-safe container. Pour as much olive oil as needed to fully cover the ingredients.
4. Place container in oven and bake for 1.5-2 hours, or until garlic has become golden and soft.
5. Let cool to room temperature before storing in an airtight container in the refrigerator.