Tomato Toast with Garlic Confit

This recipe came about after I made a large batch of garlic confit last week, I first made it back in lockdown when we went crazy over hoarding staples, in my case to minimize grocery store trips. Anyway thankfully those days are behind us, but I continue making garlic confit after my culinary eyes were opened to “confit’ing”. Confit is a traditional way to preserve ingredients like produce, meats fish etc, but who knew it would be one of the most amazing and luxurious ways to preserving them. For full deets on making Garlic Confit checkout the full blogpost. Also checkout Salmon Confit, it’s one of the most amazing ways to eat salmon. I digress!

This recipe is simple, versatile and a great one to have in your back pocket specially if you have homegrown/farmers market tomatoes that start to peak right about now.

How To make Tomato Garlic Confit Toast

I love confit because it is so simple, yet so impressive, not to mention versatile and super delicious. Here is how to make garlic confit tomato toast. Scale this recipe up or down depending on how many people you are feeding or you want to make extra for weekly meal preps. Here is the step-by-step on how to make:

• Preheat your oven to 250° F.
• Separate and peel the garlic cloves. HACK: to peel the garlic cloves easily, break the garlic head into cloves by pressing the head with the heal of your palm of your hand. Place them in a container or mason jar with a lid and shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds. Most of the skins should have fallen off and the the ones that aren’t fully peeled will be loose enough to peel off easily.
• In a small baking dish, add garlic, thyme/rosemary and chili flakes. Making sure the garlic is in a single layer., not piled. I used a skillet about 7-8″ in diameter, you can also use a small cast iron dish or a small baking dish, just make sure it is deep enough to cover the garlic about two-thirds of the way up with oil.
• Pour the olive oil over the ingredients until the garlic and herb-chili flakes are submerged. You may need more or less oil, depending on the size of your baking dish.
• Bake this for one hour at 250°F. The oil should be just under the simmer temperature.
• Remove the garlic confit from the oven. The garlic should be fork tender and buttery. Let the mixture cool. Refrigerate or freeze unused garlic, see the full blog post for step by step method to confit here.