Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Amen.

I think most of you know how I feel about garlic presses. 'Nuff said.

Amy

Nancy, nice to see you, a lot of the ole folks have migrated over here and hopefully when we get rolling it will be a pretty good place.

I unlike most of you don't like a garlic press, I have tried I don't know how many of them, they don't do a great job and they are hard to clean.

If the recipe calls for slices, I slice but for everything else I use a grater. It gets all the juices out and is very simple to use, but a word of caution, use a good grater I have also thrown a lot of these out, the one I got with my Cook Country subscription works the best, it isn't pretty but works great.

Years ago I bought "La Method" and "La Technique" and even watched Pepin chop garlic in person and though I have tried and tried I can't seem to get the garlic to look like his does. And like Nancy, it always seems to stick to the knife. I have the best luck with a 10" chef's knife which is very sharp and very heavy. This after watching Sara Moulton. Maybe perfection is only a dream.
fitzie

I don't mind chopping garlic but HATE cleaning a garlic press so I use mine less and less. I don't notice much of a difference but I am sure if my cooking skills were of a higher caliber I might. Thanks for letting me post here!

Mary

I chop, but I don't like it. I use the mini-chopper that goes with my immersion blender if I have a lot to do. If I need it really fine, I'll grate it, like Barry, on the Microplane that CC gave me.

I am a little puzzled about the burning aspect. I always add the garlic (diced/minced/pressed) to a bit of oil, not directly to the pan. I try and time it, so it doesn't cook too long, often adding it after the onions are almost done, if diced or minced onions are part of the recipe. While garlic is easy to burn, it seems no more demanding than many other ingredients. But like I mentioned I often dodge the whole thing with roasted garlic paste instead, so I probably should just hush.

I learned my limited garlic chopping & mincing skills from Caprial and John Pence. They had a nice class teaching some introductory knife skills and the basics of breaking down a chicken. We learned basic dicing, mincing and then using salt and the edge of a chefs knife to reduce garlic to a paste. A pleasant way to spend an afternoon in Portland.

ooh Caprial! There's a blast from the past.

For years i chopped by hand, but now I love my garlic press (DH bought me the kuhn rikon one for Christmas that swings out for easy cleaning). I don't even bother to peel anymore.

Well, getting a very even fine mince is a matter of practice and persistence. But it doesn't take a lot to get a good rough mince which works fine ... and is better than the paste produced by a press if the recipe calls for minced garlic.

Garlic sticking to the knife is really not a problem. Let it stick! Mince hard and the larger pieces will fall off and be minced down. Maybe scrape the stuck garlic off with a paring knife when you're done chopping.

I do notice that garlic is less inclined to stick to my carbon steel knives than my stainless ones.

Last night I prepared a dish that called for 4 cloves of finely minced garlic. I do wish they would say how much minced garlic you're supposed to end up with because the cloves I had were pretty big.

After about 10 minutes, I had what I thought was finely minced garlic, Maybe patience is the answer.

fitzie