Thursday, March 26, 2009

Provocative Garlic Mincing Tips

By Michael Tong

Garlic is thought to have many beneficial properties but before you can use it as an ingredient for your cooking, you will need to detach some of the cloves from the head first. After that, you can use your knife as a mallet to free the garlic cloves from the bulb. You can either whack the whole bulb with a ketchup bottle of with the flat side of your knife. To burst the peel of each clove, simply whack them with the flat side of the knife but make sure that they are intact as you need to mince them manually or with a garlic press.

One the other hand, if you plan to slice the garlic clove, you shouldn't smash it then. Use a paring knife to take off the skin and cut off the brown root tip of each clove. To chop the garlic, you would use a sharp paring knife and cut the clove into lengthwise slivers. After that, cut across the slivers with slices close together to make small pieces.

For mincing, use a chef's knife and rock the knife over the chopped garlic until the pieces are finely chopped. To collect the minced garlic, just sweep it with the knife's blade. If you prefer not to have any garlic smell on your hands, you can always use a garlic press to make things easier for you.

Is it true that the use of garlic press will crush the cells of the garlic and release bitter oils which will ruin the flavor of the garlic? Not really as the way a garlic press works is pretty much the same as crushing garlic with the side of a knife. Garlic press is merely a kitchen tool that makes chopping and mincing garlic so much easier, faster, and cleaner and smell free.

If you don't have a garlic press and you don't want to peel and chop, you can bake the amount garlic you want in an oven for an hour at 350F. After that, you can squeeze the garlic out in paste form after it has cool down. Garlic paste is perfect for bread spread and you can use them in your soup too.

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