Skip to main content

Mushroom tagliatelleDanielle Matar/The Globe and Mail

This is a lovely end-of-summer vegetarian meal that's perfect for entertaining. Black garlic gets its colour from slow cooking and has a savoury, earthy flavour with a hint of molasses and balsamic. Its umami-rich, sweet flavour is excellent in mayos and aiolis, rubbed as a paste on steaks and chicken or tossed with pasta.

You can buy it in Asian stores. You can also make it at home if you have a spare rice cooker that you can leave on warm for three weeks, although in my experiments I found that the smell, although quite lovely, was too much for me after a while.

The menu is rounded out with a no-cook cold soup and dazzling peach shortcake.

Chilled Cucumber, Watermelon and Tomato Soup

Pasta with Black Garlic and Mushrooms

New Wave Shortcake

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe