Black garlic: seems weird, tastes delicious

My co-worker introduced me to an ingredient an Asian friend of hers insisted that she try: black garlic. The description of its flavor was intriguing to me, so my co-worker brought me some from her stash at home.

I looked up a little more information about the process of creating black garlic and found these sites about it helpful: http://blackgarlic.com/how-its-made; http://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/2009/04/black-garlic.html; http://www.philly.com/inquirer/food/20100107_Garlic_in_a_new_hue__Black.html?viewAll=y
I had no idea that the process of creating black garlic out of ordinary garlic was so time-consuming. We're talking fermentation for weeks and then a drying process.

Straight out of the papery skin, the name "black garlic" is not kidding about the color. The skin is brown and smoky-smelling, and the cloves themselves are black and shriveled. They pull away pretty easily from their papery cases because they have shriveled and have fairly dry exteriors. When I cut them, they had a gummy texture a bit like licorice candy, which is the same color as black garlic. The flavor is reminiscent of roasted garlic, but there is an added tang from fermentation.

Not knowing quite where to start with the stuff, I thought I'd just substitute it for ordinary sauteed garlic in a recipe I already had planned for the week: meatless mushroom Stroganoff sauce on pasta. Here is the garlic on the cutting board with the mushrooms:

I halved a few cloves lengthwise and sliced them, putting the garlic into the saute pan with the mushrooms to cook in olive oil. Then in went the sour cream, lots of pepper, a little salt. I served the sauce on spaghetti noodles.

The smell in the pan was fascinating: garlicky, something a little smoky or roasted with that faint whiff of fermented tanginess, mixed with the savory scent of cooking mushrooms. The mixture was intriguing to my nose and heavenly on the tongue, especially since every drop of the sour cream was imbued with a light black garlic flavor. I came away from the meal believing that black garlic and mushrooms were eternal soul mates.

The next experiment with the rest of the black garlic was using it to dress up some smashed potatoes (a more rustic mashed potato in which I don't bother peeling and don't bother mashing until smooth). Again, I just substituted the black garlic for ordinary garlic. When I make a potful of smashed potatoes, I often put five or six cloves of whole, peeled garlic in the cooking water to cook along with the potatoes. When the potatoes are done, the garlic is softened enough that it just melts into the potato mash. No so with the black garlic. Those cloves, even after cooking longer than 20 minutes, were determined to remain intact and squishy-rubbery. The potato masher cut a couple into some thick slices, at best. The black garlic flavor didn't really transfer to the potato mass as a whole, but some bites were punctuated by strong smoky-tangy flavor and the garlic gave a bit more resistance to the teeth than the potato chunks. Nothing unpleasant about it, but the experience left me wishing I had cut the garlic cloves in smaller pieces before cooking.

Fried potato mush made from the leftovers was an awakening for the nasal cavities as the black garlic pieces touching the frying pan launched a smell that was like dark brown toast close to burning, smeared with roasted garlic. A couple of times, I flavored my mush with slices of leftover turkey Italian sausage. The sausage and garlic were bright lights in a fog of plain potato, making for a more exciting mush than I've ever eaten before.