Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I am a chopper. I really love to chop, chop, chop. My husband even loves to tell his friends how lucky he is because "most women like to shop but Nance loves to chop" .

But there is one thing I really dislike chopping - garlic. I find myself avoiding it like the plague. Sticks to the knife, and my fingers, have to chase those little bits all around the cutting board and then turn over the knife and find slices stuck to the other side. I've tried the Pepin way and it just doesn't work for me. I grow my own garlic which gives me fresh garlic for at least 6 months but have now resorted to the evil "garlic in a jar" for those times when a lot of minced garlic is required.

Would love to hear if anyone has some techniques that makes this less painful.

Nance

Nancy, I use a press. I can't chop garlic worth a darn.

I often use a press, too. Try as I may, I just can't chop. Sometimes I think I try to go too fast (like Jacques). Works a lot better when I slooooooooooooow down.
fitzie

Ditto on the press - wouldn't be without except when garlic slices are called for.

Nancy - Is home grown garlic worth growing?

Ivy,
I've been growing garlic and shallots for about 12 years and highly recommend it if you have the space in your garden and the right conditions. So easy to do!
I pick the best cloves of my harvest to plant but also go to the Saugerties, NY Garlic Festival every year to look for different varieties to try. My favorite is Music (best longevity) and also like German White, but have tried many others. And my shallots, wow, do they explode. I usually plant 18-24 cloves and harvest about 75 heads, 80% really good size. Try it!

My #1 complaint about Music is that the cloves tend to be enormous. OTOH, it has a very lovely flavour, so it is hard to fault that. I'm still eating some Music from the fall, but will run out in a week or two I think....

I think I'll try planting garlic and shallots this year. I use both heavily.

Sorry, chopping garlic is a PITA for me too. The sticking-to-the-knife part bugs me the most. But, I will admit, I've gotten better at it.

Ivy,

Another garlic and shallot grower here, and I would not be without them! First, I use an incredible amount of both of them, in all that SE Asian food I make, plus the garlic is all hardneck, making it easier to use. Like Nancy, my favorite garlic is Music, as it has huge heads, as well as cloves (it's nice when a recipe calls for 8 cloves and you only have to peel 2 or 3! LOL), and it does keep well, for a hardneck. My second close favorite is Metechi, a German porcelain, which is also large, with large cloves, and keeps very well. Some garlic varieties need a long, deep freeze, but you should not have this problem in Boston (should you?), and these two varieties are not in this category (many rocomboles and Spanish Rioja fall in this category, I found out the hard way).

For some things, nothing beats a heavy mortar and pestle for releasing ALL of the flavor from the garlic cells. I use a press for many garlic recipes, but I also use the Zyliss chopper, for this and ginger, in many oriental recipes. I often want the garlic somewhat coarse, for texture, and the chopper is great for doing this. I always do the garlic first, then the ginger, as it sort of cleans the garlic off, and I hate to waste garlic!

Occasionally I buy garlic (when I need a LOT of garlic, like when making a double or triple recipe of nam prik pao, so I buy an 8 or 12 oz container of peeled garlic) even after growing 120 heads every season! Actually, I replant a lot of that, I don't eat all of it...though I doubt I have to worry about vampires in my house.

While I will chop garlic occasionally just to keep my hand in or show my brother-in-law how to do it, I'm pretty much a garlic press guy. But my standard "goto" is roasted garlic paste. Yeah, not quite the same flavor, but not bad. I roast half a dozen heads or so, mash them with olive oil, and store in the refrigerator. I'm setting up to do a few heads every time I smoke ribs or chicken to maximize the use of the grill and see if whatever I use for smoke helps the roasted garlic flavor. "But when pressed for time, I press."

Hmmm, this is one of those things, I guess.

Mincing garlic is easy, you just chop a lot until the garlic is minced fine enough. It's easier if you have a really sharp heavy knife; mincing garlic becomes quite difficult if your knife is dull, or with a thin, light knife. I like to use my hand-forged santoku for this, but a Chinese cleaver or a really sharp chef's knife also works quite well.

Using the "crush with the flat of the knife" technique of peeling the garlic makes it easier to mince.

Garlic presses are poor substitutes for minced garlic; the texture is all wrong, and it burns in a frying pan. Use a mincing device, like a mini-voohpa or a Garlic Genius instead. Garlic presses are a substitute for pureed/mashed garlic.