Spiced Elephant Garlic Bread

Annemarie Bolduc
Feb 2, 2022
2 min read

Updated: Feb 5, 2024

This combination of elephant garlic and bushspices with parmesan on bread is so worth trying!

Making some bushfood flavoured garlic bread • Photography © Bottle and Brush Studio 2022

When I discovered that the perennial alliums I had in my established Australian garden were a variety of leek with edible giant bulbs called "elephant garlic", they caught my curiosity, so I started playing with some recipes using them. Their taste is milder than conventional garlic and the cloves are much bigger. This "free-style" recipe idea presented here uses elephant garlic, but if you cannot find any, you can use the conventional one. Elephant (or Russian) garlic is not usually available in grocery shops but is easy to grow in a suitable climate. I love homemade garlic bread occasionally, especially after harvesting homegrown garlic, adding parmesan, fresh herbs and/or spices, whatever the feeling of the moment is!

Homegrown elephant garlic • Photography © Bottle and Brush Studio 2020-21

While I have also been experimenting with some Australian native bushspices recipes, I found that the perfect way to discover their taste is with simple ingredients that marry well with strong flavours like cheese, bread, and garlic. My "winner" combination for this recipe is a mix of bush tomato, pepper berry, river mint and saltbush. This is my suggestion but you can try it with any spices you like and have at hand. I added fresh herbs and greens to maintain the bushfood spirit on this dark mood shot. These are native oregano leaves and warrigal greens from the plants I have in the garden. I am starting a little Australian native garden with plants suitable for our climate. This is a very exciting project, more to tell soon!