Richly flavored, this baked garlic is nestled in a bed of fresh thyme and gently flavored by freshly rendered pasture-raised lard. If you can’t consume six bulbs of garlic right away, you can easily freeze the cloves for later use and they keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.
Gently rub away as much of the papery outer skins of the garlic bulbs of you can, but take care to leave the skins encasing the garlic cloves intact.
Using a good sharp and sturdy knife, chop the very top of the bulbs of garlic off so that you might expose the tops of the individual cloves of garlic,
Place the bulbs of garlic in a clay baker or casserole dish, root-side down.
Dot each bulb with 1 tablespoon of pasture-raised lard.
Cover the garlic with fresh thyme and sprinkle the bulbs with unrefined sea salt.
Bake, covered, at 400 F for thirty to forty-five minutes. If you don’t have a covered casserole dish or clay baker, you may tent the bulbs of garlic with aluminum foil.
After about thirty to forty-five minutes, when your home becomes fragrant with the rich scent of garlic and thyme, remove the garlic from the oven and allow it to rest and come to room temperature before serving it. Baked garlic is perfect on its own or with a slice of bread, but it also adds a beautiful, deep richness to any dish in which you would customarily use fresh garlic.