Black Garlic Ice Cream with Fish Sauce Caramel
A gelato of aged black garlic, sweet and molasses-dark, under a caramel sharpened with Vietnamese fish sauce. The most divisive dessert our kitchen has served, and the only one that a table of six finished to the last spoon while arguing about it.
- 500 ml whole milk
- 150 ml double cream
- 110 g sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 60 g peeled black garlic cloves
- Pinch of salt
- For the caramel: 150 g sugar
- 80 ml double cream
- 20 g butter
- 2 teaspoons fish sauce
- Toasted sesame and flaky salt to finish
- Warm the milk and cream. Whisk the yolks with the sugar, pour on the warm milk, and cook gently, stirring, to 82 C until it thickens to a custard.
- Blend the black garlic into the hot custard until completely smooth. Add a pinch of salt. Chill thoroughly, at least 4 hours.
- Churn in an ice cream machine and freeze until scoopable, about 2 hours.
- For the caramel, melt the sugar to a deep amber. Off the heat, carefully whisk in the cream, then the butter, then the fish sauce. Keep warm.
- Serve two small scoops per bowl with warm caramel, sesame and a few flakes of salt.
Black garlic is not burnt garlic. It is whole heads of garlic held at around 60 degrees in high humidity for several weeks until the Maillard reaction and enzymatic browning turn the cloves soft, black and sweet, with flavours of balsamic, tamarind, molasses and a faint, fading garlic. Italian gelato makers have been folding it into savoury ice creams for a few years. Our kitchen wanted to push it fully into dessert, and to give it a sauce with the nerve to match.
That sauce is a caramel finished with Vietnamese fish sauce, nuoc mam, instead of salt. The idea is not new in Southeast Asia, where fish sauce caramel is a marinade and a glaze, but as a dessert sauce it is startling: the caramel's sweetness, the fish sauce's salt and its deep umami arrive together and make the black garlic gelato taste like the most sophisticated thing you have ever eaten, or like a mistake, depending on your table. Ours split four to two and then ate everything.
The numbers
- Gelato base: 500 ml whole milk, 150 ml cream, 110 g sugar, 4 yolks, 60 g black garlic cloves (about 2 heads) blended smooth into the warm base. Churned, it yields about 900 ml.
- Caramel: 150 g sugar taken to deep amber, 80 ml cream, 20 g butter, then 2 teaspoons of good fish sauce whisked in off the heat. Taste before adding more; brands vary wildly in salt.
- Serve at minus 12 C, softer than most ice cream, so the garlic aroma is released. Two small scoops per person; it is rich.
Serving
Scoop into cold bowls, pour a spoon of warm caramel over, and finish with a few flakes of sea salt and a crumble of toasted sesame. A glass of Pedro Ximénez sherry sits beside it comfortably. Serve it to people who trust you.