Black bean sauce is a thin, salty, full-flavoured mixture made with mashed, cooked, fermented black beans flavoured with garlic and sometimes star anise. It can be used as a dip, a condiment or as seasoning.
A popular and reliable variety of aubergine (US: eggplant) of enormous size with dark purple skin on oval fruits about 13cm (5 inches) long. They are tender and without bitterness and highly productive. Sounds like my husband.
Blackberries (US: bramble berries) are the reddish-black to black fruit of a prickly bramble which ripens in September-October, conveniently around the time when apples ripen, so that blackberry and apple crumble may be made.
This is a traditional dish of autumn (US: fall) in Great Britain, when the blackberries are found on brambles scrambling through the hedgerows and cooking apples, in particular Bramley apples, are falling into the wet grass. These, sliced and scattered with blackberries and a little sugar, covered with an old-fashioned pastry crust made with lard rather than butter, cooked and served with double cream (US: heavy cream), make a classic warming pie.
In some places blackbirds are cooked in the same way as thrushes. Blackbirds are at their best in autumn (US: fall), and the flavour of their own flesh is dictated by their diet. In Corsica, they are used to make a pâté.
Black boletus mushroom. A dark variety of cep mushroom which grows in deciduous woodland at higher elevations around 1800 ft. It is particularly happy under oak trees, and is found across Europe and North America from the first days of August. Excellent to eat from August to October whether raw in salads or cooked or preserved and also freezes well.
The black boletus is a dark variety of cep mushroom which grows in woods at higher elevations around 1800 ft. It is found in summer and autumn in deciduous woodland across Europe and North America. Excellent to eat. (If gathering mushrooms you must be absolutely certain what you have before you eat them as many are very poisonous.)
A pie made with a ginger biscuit (US: cookie) crust covered with a rich a dark chocolate custard, then a layer of bourbon or rum-flavoured custard and topped with chocolate caraque, or flakes of chocolate.
A brownish-red tomato variety from an Amish heirloom which many Americans consider the best flavoured tomato. The fruits are slightly oval in shape and are also available in pink, red and yellow.
