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I planted a garlic clove and now I have a nice garlic plant. The question is: Can I use the leaves to season food safely?
The leaves smell like garlic and I wonder if it's okay to use them dried, like oregano and other seasoning herbs. I don't know if will taste like garlic, or if it is dangerous to eat.
When we have had garlic in our garden I have used the garlic leaves. They do have a garlicky flavor but are milder than garlic cloves. I tend to use them more as I would chives or garlic chives as in addition to having the milder flavor than the cloves they make for a quite nice presentation.
Regarding drying them, I have never tried it. Off the top of my head I can't think of any reason not to dry them for later use but there may be issues that I just don't know about.
The green tops of garlic are called 'garlic scapes' (or sometimes, just 'scapes').
They are edible (a kind of garlic/chive mix) and there are plenty of recipes available online that use them.
One reason I love to plant garlic (In October in the NE US), is that I can use it 3 times during its life-cycle. After planting garlic sprouts. These sprouts (what you might be calling a leaf) can be cut back to ground level before winter and used in cooking...garlicky chive-like flavor and application. Then in the spring, they sprout again. After a while the scape will emerge. The scape is identifiable by a bulge at that top and the stalk is cylindrical, but tends to spiral after a while. Again, the scape can be cut off. These are best sauteed, but have other applications as well. Finally, the mature garlic head can be unearthed, dried/cured and used. Save a head and separate in to cloves for planting again the next fall!
The garlic sprout (or as we call it in persia, leaf) is very popular cooking ingredient in northeren Iran. The northeren Iran cooking style and speciastylehe city Rasht has been aproved by the Unicef as a influencial city in field of cooking and one of our very popular ingredients is the garlic sprout. We take it fry it and then use it in various kinds of omlettes, stews, and so many things. It is very tasteful and uplifiting. I recommend it to all.
I just started growing garlic, and I tried the greens. They are very good. Chive like, but, a bit more flavor and it definitely has a subtle garlic taste. I just keep cutting when I need them. I am assuming the bulb is not hampered in growth.
We make good mixed stir fry potatoes and green garlic leaves. We often use fresh leaves in different days (soup) , use as toppings on pizza, make green garlic chutanies. Air dry garlic leaves after cutting, wrap in a cloth and then refrigerate or freeze in off season.
Yes, you can use the "leaves" of growing garlic. The subtle flavor is perfect for chicken gravy. In fact, I use them much more than the actual garlic itself simply because of their refined flavor.
You will use the fresh garlic leaves in any (mixed in ingredients) dumplings. Most popular is Gyoza of Japan. This is likely similar to Nira Leaves.
I cut the stalks off and take out the hard center part then dehydrate the rest of the leaves.I then put them in the blender when dryed and put it through a sieve.They are milder tasting then garlic but we love it in soups ,sauces etc.Also good to sprinkle in salads etc.Why waste the stocks when you can put them to good use.
It's good to keep in all vegetables and non vegetables. We gring it with other spices including salt and make powder to put in salads etc. Its so tasty. We use it in potato vegetables too.
