#14 Roasted Garlic Salt

Well this isn't really a recipe in the traditional sense. It's more of an idea. Numerous recipes call for garlic salt and onion salt. I finally got my hands on some but it was Rs 200 for a bottle. A little steep I say! I still bought the garlic salt and I loved it. It was perfect for dishes where there isn't a lot of cooking involved; you could now have the yummy garlic taste without the stress of raw garlic! Salads and dips were taken to a completely new level with a sprinkle of this scrumptious salt. Even french fries tasted so much better when we used garlic salt in place of regular salt. Understandably, the teeny bottle of salt was finished in two weeks. No way was I going to buy another. I used my brains a bit and figured that I could try making my own. It came out perfect; in fact I'll say this is even better than the bottled garlic salt!

You just need garlic, salt and some herbs for this recipe. Well the herbs are optional, if you have something lying around then you could throw it in; but you don't really need to. You do get garlic flakes and dried garlic in the market so I suppose you could use that. I just used regular garlic in a pod. If you are using dried/flaked garlic then you can go straight to blitzing the garlic and salt in the food processor.

Peel the garlic and roughly chop it up. Spread it out on a baking tray and sprinkle some salt all over. You then pop this in an oven pre-heated at 200C for about 15 minutes. If you don't have an oven, you could actually dry out the garlic in the sun. It won't be 'Roasted Garlic Salt' any more, just 'Garlic Salt'; but it's still yummy. I used to dry the garlic in the sun earlier; but it would take almost a week for the garlic to get dried through. The roasting method is just way easier.

You'll know the garlic is ready when it is beautifully golden and fragrant.

Grind the roasted garlic and remaining salt till it's rather fine. The smell will blow you away! You can add your herbs now - I've used chives, oregano, mixed herbs, Italian Seasoning and so on in the past. This step is entirely up to you and not necessary. You can use this salt as a substitute for regular salt. Even a couple of sliced tomatoes with a sprinkle of garlic salt are yummy! The salt lasts for 3 months at least. It always gets over by then so I don't know the actual shelf life!

Ingredients

• 2-3 pods Garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 cup Salt
• Herbs (optional)

Spread out the garlic on a baking dish and sprinkle 1/4 cup of salt all over. Roast in an oven pre-heated to 200C for 15 minutes or till the garlic is golden.

Grind the roasted garlic and the remaining salt in a food processor till it's rather fine. You can add the herbs at this point.

Store in an air-tight bottle.