culinary flights of fancy

Home Cooking Adventures in Berkeley Heights


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Black Bean and Black Garlic Dip with Red Chili Flakes and Feta Cheese

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Are you ready for the Super Bowl?  Me too!  Are you going to a party or throwing one to celebrate the big game?  If you are or if you are just hanging out and watching it at home by yourself or with your family, chances are you will be looking for something good to snack on during the game.  This dip is easy, tasty, and very healthy.

Black garlic can be found at specialty and health food stores and at most Asian markets.  It can also be easily found on-line.  So, what is black garlic?  It’s pretty straight forward in that it is simply garlic that has been roasted and then fermented for a period of time (usually around a month or so).  During the fermentation process the garlic is kept at specific temperature and humidity levels and it’s through this process that the garlic literally turns black and changes in flavor from raw garlic to something that is slightly savory and slightly sweet with notes of molasses with just a hint of the original garlic flavor.  Its flavor is quite interesting and, in my opinion, quite good.  Due to the fermentation process, the garlic takes on specific health and wellness qualities beyond the normal benefits garlic provides (which are numerous).

The chili flakes add touch of heat and the feta just adds a bit of texture and color.  You can certainly use any crumbly cheese you prefer or have on hand.  Also cilantro or chives would work well instead of or in addition to the parsley.  Finally, if you have time, there’s no substitute for making beans from scratch using dried black beans.  If you go this route, it will likely take about 90 minutes or so.  Otherwise this dish takes about ten minutes to pull together.

Serve this dip with homemade pita chips, tortilla chips, bread, vegetables or whatever you’d like.  After the game, if you have leftovers, use it as a spread on a sandwich or a tortilla wrap.  Enjoy the game!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading


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Products Worth Mentioning: Black Garlic

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Black garlic is simply garlic that has been roasted, fermented, and aged in a controlled temperature and humidity level for a period of time, usually about a month.  It has a super interesting flavor with notes of sweet garlic, molasses, and perhaps even some vinegar notes.  I read about it a few months ago and decided to order it (on Amazon) over the holidays and made a flatbread with black garlic and mushrooms last week (recipe for some flatbreads to follow in the coming days).  Tara and I both agreed that we had never really had anything like it.  It, as I said above, has just a really interesting flavor.  You can read more about black garlic here.

Oh, I almost left out the best part of using black garlic:  it is very, very good for you.  If you are into food (and I assume you are since you are reading a food blog), you’ve probably noticed an increase in conversation about the benefits of fermented food and it’s link to helping improve and balance the bacterial world that resides in our guts.  Black garlic,since it is fermented, has a number of health benefits.

Interestingly, scientists are finding ever increasing evidence that these bacteria provide us with a huge number of important health and wellness benefits.  It’s one of the reasons you have been hearing more and more about yogurt with bacterial cultures left in tact, sauerkraut, and kimchi among others and how all of these fermented foods truly benefit a number of biological functions and environments within our body.  As an aside, I made yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut last year and all are easy to pull off.  Please experiment around.  I’ll try to post a couple of recipes on these myself but, for example, homemade sauerkraut consists of cabbage and salt at its most basic level and only requires time to ferment.  The end result is infinitely better (I mean way better) than the store bought variety and is so very good for you.  I digress…

Along with the flatbread last week, I am planning on making fresh ravioli with black garlic tonight.  Right now the plan is to use it with some marscarpone and something else with savory notes (as you can tell, I’m still working that out).  However, assuming it turns out well, I’ll post the recipe for the black garlic ravioli at some point next week.  In fact, I’m making a number of different pastas from scratch tonight so hopefully, with luck, they will turn out and you can expect those next week too.  I’m sort of excited about the pasta as I know a good number of readers here love pasta and I’m planning on making some unique flavor combinations that use a number of different flours, etc.

Further, I’ve been experimenting around with various types of flours in hopes of coming up with a better quality pizza crust (which can double as a flatbread crust) that can work for home cooks.  By experimenting and having some rather lackluster results at times (ask Tara), I think I’ve come up with a winner of a recipe using two different types of flour and a drastically reduced amount of yeast.  Also, I spoke to a chef in Florence about their pizza crust (which I loved) and he gave me a great tip/hint as well and I’ll share that too.  So, I will be posting another pizza night extravaganza suite of recipes similar to what I did a few months back but reflecting my new crust recipe and cooking technique…plus new topping ideas.

Until then…try the black garlic and other fermented foods.  You will love the taste and you will reap a good number of health benefits to boot!