What my life was like before I tasted black garlic? Pretty alright, but apparently also tragically incomplete. It can seem a little intimidating at first, but once you go black… well, you get the gist. I’m not saying you should wave goodbye to your trusty regular garlic, the sweet dark aroma of black garlic is an entirely different thing altogether. These soft, sticky cloves are great just spread on a piece of toast, or as part of this delicious bruschetta, and adding it to a balsamic vinaigrette will elevate any salad to a higher level of salad-y goodness. Especially when that salad also contains sweet, juicy tomatoes and crunchy, soy sauce-coated sunflower seeds.

Ingredients (for 2):

250 g colourful cherry tomatoes (orange, red, yellow), halved

35 g  lamb’s lettuce

3 cloves of black garlic

3 tbsp of a mild and fruity extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

black pepper

a pinch of salt

a handful of sunflower seeds

light Japanese soy sauce (Kikkoman)

• Put the lamb’s lettuce in  a salad bowl.
• Arrange the halved cherry tomatoes on top.
• Make the dressing by combining the black garlic cloves, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and blend till it’s sort of smooth. Don’t worry if the garlic stays a bit chunky.
• Heat a bit of olive oil in a shallow frying pan. Add the sunflower seeds and roast them for a minute, then add a splash of soy sauce and stir till all the seeds are coated in it and look nice and brown.
• Add the dressing to the salad and sprinkle the sunflower seeds on top.