Every spring, for a week or two, our markets and bazaars are flooded with fat bulbs of fresh Black Sea garlic. Fresh garlic is great for so many things, but during this time, It’s nearly impossible to find dried garlic, the standard garlic we use in everyday cooking.  Fresh garlic season has gotten me into a bit of trouble two years in a row: I haven’t had enough dried garlic on hand and large dinner parties planned where garlic was essential to the recipes. I’ll probably make the same mistake next year, too…

Last week I had to go to no less than a dozen different markets before I found dried garlic. I picked up some of the green garlic while I was at it, eager to try out a recipe I came across last winter and kept in my mind for spring. Fresh garlic has a milder flavor than dried and can be used raw in salads the same way a scallion might be used. It can also be substituted for leeks or green onions in recipes. In Turkey they are often pickled using the classic pickling method, but I wanted to try something different. Based on a recipe from Olia Hercules book Mamushka, this Armenian method ferments the garlic before pickling it. I will warn you, this is not for the faint of heart. You had better love the scent of garlic because it gets intense. I actually moved it out onto the balcony by about mid-way through the process. Pickled garlic can be eaten along soups and stews and we eat it with a lot of bean dishes with hearty bread. It’s popular when drinking the spirits as well, especially the most popular spirit in Turkey, the national drink an anise flavored liquor called Rakı.

I based this recipe on the number of heads I could pickled for the jar I had to store them. It can go up or down easily.

Ingredients

7 heads of fresh (green) garlic

1 liter of water to 3 Tablespoons of pickling salt

1 to 2 ratio white distilled vinegar to water

Method

1. Soak the garlic heads in filtered unsalted water for 3 days. Be sure to change the water every day. Keep refrigerated.
2. After 3 days drain the water and replace with the brine, be sure to weight the garlic with a plate so it is fully submerged. Do not refrigerate. I chose to change the brine every few days for 7 days.
3. After a week drain the garlic and place it in the pickling container, add the vinegar solution and wait at least 24 hours before eating them. I prefer to refrigerate my pickles.                             Garlic soaking in fresh water, day 1.

I really love pickling and fermenting things. I enjoying eating them of course, but I enjoy the process more. I tend to give a lot of my pickles away to friends and family because I do so much of it. This pickled garlic will come with us on our next visit to my husband’s village on the Black Sea. We will eat them with keşhkek while gossiping with his family, creating good memories over good food.

Update: On our recent trip to Azerbaijan in the village of Lahic we came across a real life example of this recipe! It was so gratifying to be in the region of this recipe’s origin and stumble across them. Actually we smelled them before we saw them. This stuff is not for the faint hearted, that garlic funk is real.