Using Black Garlic to Color Your Food
You won’t find black garlic at your average store but upon its discovery your first reaction may be, something’s gone wrong with those bulbs: the garlic should be thrown away before it affects the rest of the vegetables.
In a way, you’re correct, the garlic has gone bad, but the decay has happened under a controlled environment involving a high temperature and high humidity. The process,fermentation, slowly turns the color from white to grey-brown to black. The garlic becomes sweeter and the texture alters to a chewy and jelly-like state.
A Delicacy from the Far East
The culinary world owes so much to the East, and it wouldn’t be what it is today without tea, rice, noodles, soy bean sprouts, oyster sauce, stir frying—the list goes on. For centuries, Japanese, Korean, and Thai chefs have used black garlic to flavor chicken, fish, soup, and rice dishes.
Some sing high praise to the effects of black garlic on your health. Although the health claims of this super-food are still under investigation, its flavor-packing claims hold true. The best part—you don’t need much of this special flavor to add an unusual and exciting taste to your product.
What you can do with black garlic in the kitchen
The fermented alium delivers the molasses sweetness and soft fudgy texture of roasted garlic, with a gently pungent funk. Taste a black garlic clove simply as-is or put it on a piece of bread. While it’s true tasting involves all the senses, for this experiment, you can disconnect sight if the color seems off-putting. In this case, your mouth and tongue, but also your nose, are important.
What do people say, after they’ve taken a first bite?
- Garlic flavor, but sweet, very sweet
- Very fragrant, like balsamic vinegar
- Reminds me of dates
- Molasses-like richness
Many recipes you’ll find simply use black garlic as a substitute for normal garlic, but that doesn’t do the condiment justice. Instead, flavorists can take advantage of black garlic’s sweetness and slight tanginess in a ranch dressing, hoisin sauce, hummus—the application possibilities are endless . To infuse your product with the optimal amount of pizzazz with careful culinary control, a mixture of Advanced Biotech’s Natural Garlic Oil, Myrcene Natural and Natural (Alcohol-Free) Molasses Distillate in the right quantities can produce the same exciting flavor effect.