I used to avoid “cookie spices” in my savory food, but have very much come around now that I have spent a lot of time making Mexican and Indian food, in particular. However, this Italian recipe for braised eye of round with tomato and cloves (12 of them!) is also really, really good and feeds many (recipe header says its a cutlet; it’s not, although you do slice thinly before serving):
They’re essential for making German-style braised red cabbage, but I kinda despise biting into those sneaky mofos, so I either meticulously pick them out before serving, or use a dash of ground cloves.
I use 5 spice powder in a few recipes, but don’t find them too offensive or prominent in the mix - thank goodness!
I find their aroma & taste incredibly overwhelming (don’t get me started on those clove cigarettes my Indonesian buddies in HS would smoke 
), and use them rarely.
They’re also supposed to have numbing/anti-inflammatory properties, AFAIK, and an old home remedy for toothaches is popping a couple of cloves near the source of pain. Personally, I prefer aspirin.
For some reason, my the office of my dentist when I was growing up always smelled like cloves. You could smell it down the hall from the front door. I thought it was because of the mouthwash they dispensed - Lavoris - but that was cinnamon flavored. (ETA _ I’m reading that it is cinnamon *and * clove flavored). My mom always studded hams with cloves before baking. Smelled good, but ya gotta extract those little nails before commencing to chow down.
My mom always made an orange-clove rice to go with a saucy chicken recipe she called Fail-Safe Company Chicken (because it would hold in the oven if guests were late). Has orange juice, dried minced onion, 10-12 whole cloves and a cinnamon stick, the latter two ingredients getting picked out before serving. Easy to do so as they are added last to the cooking pot and there is no stirring once they’re laid on top of the rice and liquid and covered to cook.
When I had my wisdom teeth removed in the early 90s, I developed a dry socket (insanely painful!). Went back to the dentist and he packed it with cotton pellets soaked in clove oil. It didn’t eliminate the pain but definitely helped.
I’d have been even better if I hadn’t contracted a stomach bug in the middle of it all…
To me, tomato + clove = ketchup. And that’s a deal-breaker 
Trying to remember a dessert I made once with clove cake, I know there was grapefruit, there might have been tarragon too …
I can see that. This sauce lacks the acid of ketchup though!
This sounds interesting. It made me think of another beef braised in tomatoes that I like in the winter, braciole (cloves of garlic only, no clove spice, in the recipes I’ve checked)
We’ve a family tradition of decorating oranges by shoving cloves into the skin around Christmas; absolutely love the scent.
Had no idea we were making Orange and Clove Pomander Balls!
Clove is also part of Quatre Epices, used in some French pates.
Quatre épices are also used in some tourtières and Quebec -style meat stuffings.
Many French recipes for braises and stews call for studding a wedge of onion with 3-5 cloves (clous de girofles)
Place a pile of WHOLE cloves across an ant trail for an organic ant deterrent.
NOTE: Once our son called us when we were out of town, asking how to handle an ant invasion. I gave him the above advice. A couple of weeks later we returned home to fine patches of rust color across kitchen floor tile. Son had used several ounces of ground cloves which we found are pretty effective as an indelible die.
