Air-Fryer Roasted Garlic

There's a class of pantry ingredient that does not exist commercially in any form approaching the real thing, and roasted garlic is the patient zero. The jarred version in oil tastes like one note (acidic, faintly metallic). The fancy gel-tubed version is closer but still shy. Roasted garlic — actually roasted, with caramelised edges and that almost-spreadable softness through the middle — is what they're trying to be. Twenty minutes at 380°F gets you there.

The classic version is a whole head, top sliced off, oiled and wrapped in foil in a 400°F oven for an hour. The air fryer beats this in every practical way: faster (20 minutes vs. an hour), less foil, more even caramelisation. The downside is you have to peel the cloves first — the air fryer doesn't roast whole heads well because the papery skin blocks the convection. Five minutes of peeling for a jar of liquid gold; fine trade.

The photo shows the finish: peeled cloves in a small ramekin, deeply golden at the tips, glassy in the middle. The texture goes from raw- firm-crunchy to soft-spreadable-sweet, with the bite gone entirely. Each clove is now usable as either a half-teaspoon of garlic punch (one clove smashed into a dressing) or a base for something bigger (six cloves whipped into mashed potatoes, a head's worth folded into softened butter for compound butter).