Cloves (Myrtaceae)Cloves are the dried pink flower buds of a tropical evergreen tree originally from Moluccas but now widely grown in Zanzibar, Madagascar and the West Indies.
The trees flourish best near the coast.
The essential oil is a powerful antiseptic as we may recognize from our visit to the dentist where it is used as the basis for a powerful mouthwash.
The oil is also numbing and used on the gums for toothache as a home cure. So we have to be delicate when we are using cloves in cooking because the smallest amount can be overpowering.
An onion stuck with six or so cloves is essential in making a good bread sauce; and apple stuck with cloves likewise a spices a dish of red cabbage.
Used like this they can be taken out when the flavour is strong enough.
Whole cloves, which should be plump and well formed, conserve their flavour better than the ground powder.
Cloves (Myrtaceae)
