27 Ways to Use Black Garlic ~ "The latest 'it' ingredient in chefs' kitchens"

Look what I’ve got ...

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a bugger for the black garlic, which makes me cool because I recently read that black garlic is 

“the latest ‘it’ ingredient in chef's kitchens.” 

Why not pin this to refer to later!

I love the stuff and now here it is in a seriously handy new form – paste. Yippee!

I have already experimented with black garlic in loads of dishes and often had to mash the cloves to get the desired result but no need for that any more – this smooth unctuous paste (which smells divine when you open the jar) is so flippin’ useful.

Black garlic hardly tastes of garlic at all, maybe vaguely reminiscent, that’s all. It has a deep, rich, sweet molasses/balsamic flavour which goes well with both sweet and savoury ingredients, in fact I feel the possibilities are almost endless so watch this space!

Here are my ideas – so far ...

Black Garlic Oil

Whisk a little of the paste into olive oil, it won’t emulsify but it still works, and use thus ...

~   brush around the naked edge of pizza before baking.
~   or onto hot fresh out the oven focaccia.
~   toss with bits of bread to make croutons. (Please, please do make you own croutons – it’s ridiculously easy and absolutely pointless buying them!) 
~   roast potatoes.

~   drizzle on salads, soups, meat, fish, cheese or whatever you fancy.

Black Garlic Butter

Cream together soft butter and black garlic paste to taste (crumbled blue cheese and/or coarsely ground black pepper are both good additions to this) and you might as well make plenty and store it, here's a good way ...

~   Spread a square of clingfilm or baking parchment onto the counter.
~   Scrape the soft and tasty butter into sausage about 30mm from and parallel to one edge.
~   Lift that edge and use the film or parchment to roll and shape the butter into a cylinder.
~   When satisfied roll the butter in the rest of the clingfilm and twist the ends to secure.
~   Chill or freeze until needed.
~   Use a hot knife to slice cold or frozen butters.

Use Black Garlic Butter to ...

~   make fabulous garlic bread.
~   add to mashed potatoes – particularly good with steak
~   swirl a little on top of a bowl of mushroom (or other) soup
~   dollop into baked potato
~   sauté mushrooms
~   top a steak with a slice or two of the chilled butter, or, even better ...
~   after pan frying steak set the meat aside somewhere warm to relax, add a splash of red wine, beef stock or even water to the pan and boil, scraping the pan to dissolve any meaty juices, and when there is just a tablespoon of sauce left quickly stir in a knob of the butter till emulsified and pour it over the steak.
~   enrich scrambled eggs. You know when you are scrambling eggs and they are just about perfect? Immediately they reach this point stir in some cold butter (in this case black garlic butter) which will not only enrich the eggs but will stop them cooking any further and keep them perfect.
~   the taste of black garlic goes surprisingly well with eggs so try spreading it on toast for poached eggs or perhaps onto your soldiers!
~   etc.

Other Ideas for Black Garlic ...

~  Stir into mayonnaise – makes for a great potato salad.
~  Mix with mixture of cheese scraps for an interesting potted cheese.
~  Shake into vinaigrette - this is a good marinade for beef or duck.
~  Add to hummus and other bean dips.
~ Toss into freshly cooked tagliatelle or similar not too substantial pasta, together with crumbled blue cheese, lots of freshly ground black pepper and just a splash of the pasta cooking water to make it saucy.

Another one for Pinterest!

Add to Alfredo Sauce – lovely easy Alfredo recipe here. 

Just stir a little black garlic paste, to taste, through the sauce. Mushrooms (sautéed in black garlic butter if you have some) are a good addition to this and it is equally delicious on pasta or as a sauce for chicken, for instance, or just with bread or toast for a gorgeous lunch.

~  Stir a little Black Garlic Alfredo through mushroom risotto.

Black Garlic Ice Cream

Black garlic is sweet and molasses-ish so a while ago I experimented with Black Garlic Ice Cream and it was excellent. At the time I had to purée the garlic cloves with the cream but now this won’t be necessary.

Good News about Black Garlic!

Pinterest?

Black Garlic ~ please help!

Pin to enlighten the World!

I don’t know if you remember but a couple of years ago black garlic entered my life and I was enchanted. After all these years playing with food an exciting new ingredient to experiment with and, not only that, it's a wonderful one!  

So I happily skipped about in the sunshine buying this nectar from Tesco and various other places, whenever I saw it, which was reasonably often.  Often enough to always have some in my interesting store cupboard to enhance my sudden lunches. Just look at it, beautiful or what!

I ran out a while back but wasn't too perturbed as I was going away for a couple of months, I’d re-stock when I got home.  Imagine my horror on my return when however hard I searched I couldn't find any black garlic anywhere.  Apparently people have stopped stocking it which is just plain daft, so far as I can see. This stuff needs to be out there, people need to know.

Luckily I found some on Amazon so I've ordered 6 packets and shall be boring the knickers off you with all my ideas as soon as it arrives.

I very seriously recommend this wonderful ingredient to anyone who loves good food, it has a sweet almost balsamic-ish, molassesy taste and a soft squidgy texture, like a dried fruit version of garlic.  And, as they say themselves …

Black garlic also has a long shelf life, 6-8 months, so is perfect for spontaneous cooking and making leftovers even more delicious.

So, perhaps you could help this situation by asking for black garlic when you go shopping.  Don’t worry, it probably won’t cost you anything as nobody seems to stock it. but if enough people ask perhaps Tesco and others will start buying it again.

Read more about black garlic here.

and

Ideas for using black garlic here.

Ever tried Black Garlic? Here's some good ideas to get you started!

If you have been concentrating you will remember that I was recently delighted; the reason being that I had discovered black garlic. Well I have just been delighted again by trying a blue cheese, Saint Agur, that for some inexplicable reason I have never tasted before.  Yummeeeeee!  And so to a recent lunch for which I first made myself some ...

Black Garlic Oil

6 cloves of black garlic

60 ml olive oil

~    Process the two together!

That’s pretty well it.  So far I have tried black garlic in two slightly different forms; a whole black garlic bulb and also as separated cloves in a little tub.  I don’t know why but the separated cloves are firmer than those still attached to the bulb, this being the case the former are better for making this oil.

Tagliatelle with Black Garlic & Blue Cheese – serves 1

A slice of great bread, coarsely crumbled

1 tbsp of black garlic oil

4 nests of tagliatelle

75g Saint Agur cheese (or any other leftover blue cheese)

another tbsp of black garlic oil

a clove or two of black garlic coarsely chopped

~   Drizzle the first tbsp of oil over the breadcrumbs and toss together.  Either dry fry till crisp and golden or bake for a few minutes in a hot oven to achieve the same end. These crisp crumbs are known as Pangrattato, read more here.

~   Chop or crumble the cheese and mix together with the chopped garlic and the second tbsp of oil.

~   Cook the tagliatelle according to instructions on the packet.

~   Set aside about 60 ml of the cooking water then drain the pasta.

~   Stir together the pasta, the blue cheese mixture and the reserved cooking water.

~   Taste and season – freshly ground black pepper is great with this – stir in some of the crisp crumbs and top the pasta with the rest.

Having made the Black Garlic Oil I was on a roll and made some other things with it …

Black Garlic Croutons 

See here for lots of useful information on croutons.

~   As a dipping oil.

~   To brush over freshly baked Focaccia.

~   Mix with a modicum of balsamic vinegar as a great salad dressing.

A few more black garlic ideas …

~  Mix a little soft butter in to the black garlic oil and make delicious garlic bread.

~   Purée together a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise and 2 cloves of black garlic.

~   Mix black garlic together with some of the aforementioned Saint Agur and eat with hot nubbly toast and a glass of red wine.  Just typing about it makes me drool!
~   More ideas here on Pinterest ~ click on the board as if it was full sized to be taken to individual pins or the whole board.

The good black garlic people have sent me some information on their wonderful product and so here is a bit of background.   Apparently it originates from South Korea but is now made using a method, recently developed in America, which takes several weeks.  During this time the sugars and amino acids react together causing the mellow flavour and the black colour. 

Benefits of Black Garlic

In addition to its wonderful flavour black garlic offers several other benefits …

~   Despite having no additives it has a surprisingly long shelf life, the packet I have is best before sometime in 2013.

~   It doesn’t cause bad breath.

~   It is full of antioxidants which, as we all know, kill free radicals – the gits.

~   It is low fat and high in natural sugars.

~   It is easily digested, more easily than fresh garlic.

I urge you to give this stuff a try, I’m sure you won’t regret it.  

Click here for lots more Black Garlic Ideas and news about handy black garlic paste.