Exploring Black Garlic

By Katie Barreira

This week I picked up a head of black garlic. I had never cooked with this type of garlic before, but had tried it in some great dishes (including a dessert panna cotta!) and I couldn’t wait to taste the unique, fermented ingredient on its own.

I knew that the aged head would be softer than raw garlic, but I wasn’t prepared for the plump, gummy clove that emerged from the flaky skin. I took a bite; the texture was smooth and toothsome, like that of a cooked beet and the flavor was much more mellow than raw garlic, with a licorice-like sweetness and just a hint of pungency.

A little pressure under the flat side of a knife and the clove yielded into thick paste that could be stirred into all sorts of things, so that just what I did!

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