Placeholder draft — replace with the real essay.
Peel more cloves than feels reasonable. Cover them in oil, keep the heat low enough that nothing ever really bubbles, and walk away for an hour. That’s the entire method, and the entire argument for making it.
Why it’s worth the hour
What comes out is two ingredients for the price of one: cloves soft enough to spread on toast, and an oil that’s quietly infused itself into the best all-purpose cooking fat in the kitchen. Both keep, refrigerated, for a couple of weeks.
It’s the kind of low-effort, high-patience project that makes Tuesday dinner taste like more care went into it than actually did — which is, honestly, most of what good cooking is.