I have read about it, eaten it, but have never been able to cook with it until recently, when I was lucky enough to get hold of some black garlic.?

Micro herb magician Steve – known to many chefs simply as The Magic Man, and winner of the 2006 Eat In Innovation Award – is bringing black garlic into South Africa, and he gave me a prized sample.

I last had it in 2011 at a Spanish Michelin-starred restaurant and tried to convince the rest of the table that it wasn’t dyed, but rather that it underwent a fermentation process that turned it sticky. It’s a bit like eating soft, dried prunes and it is, of course, pitch black. ?

I tried very thin slices of it on a fresh pine ring and mushroom risotto, and added it to a cucumber salad with ginger, chilli, lime juice and fish sauce. Black garlic doesn’t have the normal pungent odour of the white variety, but it retains its distinctive taste and adds a bold colour to dishes. I am sure chefs are going to have great fun now that this ingredient is available. ?

I missed Tuesday’s episode of MasterchefSA, so I quickly watched the repeat this morning, reminiscing about the time that I visited the night market in Zanzibar. I drank sugar cane juice much like that which Khaya so furiously pressed, and those XXXL crayfish, which are known locally as kamba.

And one of my best food memories ever was shopping at the market for fresh produce with a local lady, and then being invited into her very humble home to cook with her. She didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Swahili, but we could both talk food. We cooked prawns on coals, made coconut cream sitting on the floor together, chopped dates, peeled the mace from the nutmeg pod and shared our love for the best ingredients. ?

I am off to Durban tomorrow morning with a line-up of restaurants to visit and I’ll start off with my favourite – curries, of course. My first stop is the Capsicum Restaurant the Brittania Hotel for a sugar bean one. ?

Happy eating in and out!?
Abigail

Photograph: brunopxmarques