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Black Garlic
In our opinion black garlic makes a real difference to those recipes where garlic is one of the important flavour ingredients.
Black garlic is made by fermenting regular garlic bulbs at a warm temperature in a humidity controlled environment.
Once fermented the black garlic changes its flavour to become earthy with a hint of dates, balsamic vinegar and tamarind. The black garlic cloves become very tender and soft and the sharp taste of raw garlic has disappeared.
We just started using black garlic although we became aware of it a number of months ago we didn't want to use black garlic from China. For convenience we bought a small bottle of black cloves under the PC logo that were from Spain and after finding that we liked the flavour we purchased a number of black garlic bulbs (Ontario grown) from Brant County Garlic Company.
There are also numerous health benefits associated with eating black garlic.
It should be noted that black garlic does not make a difference in every recipe. We have found that the best recipes for the addition of black garlic is where the basic garlic flavour is a predominant part of the overall spices such as our garlic chicken.
When we used it in a shrimp pasta dish it changed the colour of the sauce from white to a tan and that made the shrimp pasta lose some of its visual appeal.
The key to getting the best results from black garlic is experimentation. Add some to a recipe and see if you are happy with the results.
As a side note, you can make your own black garlic. There are numerous methods shown online and on YouTube.com.