I can’t do chopped jarred garlic. I’ve tried it a few times, but it doesn’t taste at all like fresh garlic to me. It tastes understated, acidic, and the texture is weird. I will buy whole peeled garlic cloves in a plastic bottle, though. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I mean this. I’ll use a few cloves and then pack the thing in kosher salt to preserve it. Even the salt-packed garlic starts losing its flavor and pungency very quickly.
I’m happy to use both Thai and Indian curry pastes as shortcuts to these cuisines. Usually, I will try to bolster the flavors with fresh additions (like fresh lemongrass, galangal, and shallots for Thai curries and fresh ginger, onions, and garlic for Indian curries–and some cilantro for both. Whatever I have on hand.) I’m fine with the pastes. Same with jarred ghee.
My biggest dirty secret is I will sometimes add Accent/MSG or a bullion cube (which invariably has MSG in it) to a stock or even a spice rub. Not a lot, but just enough to perk up the flavor a bit without being overly “sharp,” for lack of a better description. It depends on what I’m doing, though. If I want the flavor to be gentle (like, say, in a tortellini al brodo) I would never add the MSG. But for something with stronger flavors (like a Korean kimchee jjiggae), I have no problem with amping up the MSG.
Ah, starting from frozen, it’s definitely easier on the stove. I don’t know how microwaves came to be so closely associated with defrosting, since that’s pretty much what they’re worst at. The problem is that microwaves heat liquid water much more readily than they heat ice, so if one part ends up melting a little bit quicker than another, it ends up getting very hot while the other parts are still frozen.
I always use garlic from a jar. So much, I go out of my way to get the big jar from the Asian store. (No bleach, no colouring, no additives). I also use the similar ginger product. I adore them both and would never consider going back to much more expensive fresh, they never keep till I need them. I also use, from a jar, fried shallots (Asian store). I still make my own, dry them and jar them, but sometimes it’s handy to have it all made for me, when I’m out.
I go one better, I just buy the ready-made crusts. I have made pizza dough before, but if I’m making pizza it’s usually because I don’t feel like bothering with rolling out dough. Everything else I can have chopped and on the crust in the time it takes to preheat the oven, and it bakes in half the time as a frozen pizza.
Another one, I’ll buy plain spaghetti sauce in a jar and add my own stuff to it. Again, I’ve made sauce from scratch before, but 90% of the time I just don’t want to be bothered.
I’m also amazed at all these jarlic people, lol. My mum is obsessed with cooking gadgets, and so when I cook at her place, half the fun of using the garlic is pulverizing the bad boy with one of these hand vices.
But even if I didn’t, I can still chop it up pretty fine with my big blade. It’s not that hard, and I can’t cook to save my life…If I need something that’s reallly fine, I’ll usually substitute fresh garlic with garlic powder.
I had one of those, until it cracked at the hinge joint. And then the same thing happened to the second one, even though I tried to be more careful and chopped only inch-thick slices of onion. But when the thing worked, it was great. Much nicer and more uniform pieces of onion than I could manage with a kitchen knife.
I’ve tried different kinds of minced garlic in jars, it just doesn’t work. I hate hate hate getting garlic smell on my fingers or cleaning a garlic press. So I splurged and got a tube of garlic paste (found in the produce section, with similar pastes like basil or tomato) and that seems to work pretty well, better than powder, anyway. I also use every variety of canned bean, with no complaints from anyone. And a packet of McCormick gravy mix is a lifesaver for certain things. (I’m not exactly cooking for epicures here.) The soup bases in jars are also wonderful, and I can make passable gravy from them, too.
I don’t follow the directions in cookie recipes. You know, the part where you’re supposed to use one bowl to mix the flour and salt and baking soda, and *another one *to mix the sugars and shortening or butter? It feels like the cookbook companies are getting a kickback from dishwasher detergent companies to suggest you dirty more bowls.
Assuming you’re in the US and have a reasonable market to shop at…
usually top shelf, same section as the tomato paste. Look for it in a tube - inside a box.
I admit I’m a little blown away by this thread. Because I didn’t even know there was such a thing as jarred garlic.
I’m far from a gourmet chef (see my awesome recipe for guacamole upthread for evidence), I just had no idea such a thing existed. I can’t decide whether I’ve been missing out or am lucky to have avoided it.
Honestly, it just tastes different. You’ll just have to try it to see if it’s acceptable. For me, if I’m just chucking together a sauce to go over some quick noodles, it’s fine. But if I’m doing something that really needs a good garlic taste, I need fresh. The jarred stuff just doesn’t have that bite that fresh garlic does. But I don’t consider it too much of an abomination. (You people that used canned stock? I need a few words with you. Abomination on aisle 3!)
My shortcut is to nuke or parboil meats before they go on the grill, who wants to babysit ribs or thick bone in hunks of bird on the barbie for hours, adding charcoal lumps, basting, turning, timing, adding lumps, basting, turning timing. Grillin is fast food over high heat, flash sizzle cover, turn once or twice bada bing it’s done.
gravy in a jar (that’s right - too lazy to even do it from powdered packet)
garlic powder (except dad gave me some of his homegrown garlic so I’ve been using that lately)
Not sure if doing rice in the microwave counts or not - I don’t think it really saves any time. The chief advantage is that I don’t have to watch the pot or worry about a curious parrot falling into it (actually, I lock the birds up when I’m cooking - want no tragic accidents!)
