I love cooking with garlic. Almost always I hand chop my garlic when the recipe calls for minced garlic. I have a garlic press and frankly the few times I have used it I did not like the results (seems to like to clump when I sauté it). Presumably this is my failing though and with a little practice/work I could sort it out.
That said I find chopping garlic tedious. I am fairly adept at it and it is not a big deal but a garlic press is certainly a lot easier to use.
I have noticed when watching cooking shows the chefs never use a press but they never say why. They just get to working chopping it by hand.
I have looked around the web and I have seen various opinions on whether or not to use a press. Some say the resulting garlic combines with foods better and imparts more garlicky goodness and others say the opposite is true.
I gave up doing both a long time ago when I discovered I could buy a metric butt load of chopped garlic in a tub, at Costco, for like $7, or something. Now I just pull out the tub and add however much is required. Sure, it’s the lazy way out, and no doubt loses something in freshness, but it’s cost-effective and 1,000 times easier.
The other thing you can do is use a mortar and pestle, if you have one, and a bit of salt. That’s what I do for certain recipes where the garlic is used raw (guacamole, baba ghannoush).
I tried that once and the results were not good. Doubtless there are places where that stuff would work but my few tries with it went badly (recipes that turn out fine when I use fresh garlic that I chop).
Garlic is cheap too so while there is an added hassle over the tub-o-garlic cost savings does not really figure in to it for me.
+1 to several of the above, actually. It depends on the dish. We have a jar of minced in the fridge, whole bulbs in the pantry, a garlic press and very sharp knives. One size does not fit all.
The problem with pressed garlic is that it really squooshes the garlic, and lets out a lot of the oil. The resulting garlic mush will degrade in flavor if you let it sit.
Chopped garlic, on the other hand, is not squooshed, and the oils are preserved in the bits of garlic. You can chop garlic by hand and let it sit for an hour or two while you do the other parts of the meal, and it won’t degrade.
So my rule of thumb is if I’m using the garlic right away, I’ll often use the press, especially if I don’t already have a cutting board being used. If I do have a cutting board out, I might chop the garlic just to avoid the hassle of cleaning the press. But I’m just as likely to use the press, it just sort of depends on what I feel like doing on any particular day.
If I’m doing mis-en-place and don’t expect to use the garlic immediately, I chop it.
I would never buy a tub of garlic pre-chopped. Garlic is cheap and easy to use in its natural form, and I don’t believe the pre-chopped stuff hasn’t degraded a lot.
Good question. I think it depends on how you are going to use the garlic. In a vinagrette, press it. In a sauce, chop it. Both methods create a different flavor.
I thought a major part of the choice to chop/smoosh the clove is to control flavour. IIRC, cut cells release enzymes that temper and mature the overall flavour, so chopping, smooshing, and letting it sit for a spell all yield different results. That is, a quick chop and use will be a bit higher than a crushed clove that sat for a short spell.
Yes, this. A good whack of the palm on the flat of my French blade nicely pulverizes it into a “chop”, and if I need it minced or pressed, a dozen “walks” across the pile with the blade does the job quickly. It takes me longer to clean a garlic press thoroughly than it does to whack and mince with a knife.
Alton Brown has a nice little marble block for the whacking step; if I ever see one in the store, I might pick it up, but the knife works fine.
I do occasionally use the pre-chopped garlic, especially if it’s a recipe that calls for a dozen cloves or more, but then I taste the final dish and it’s lacking a little something and I remember why I don’t bother with pre-chopped garlic anymore.
Ourgarlic press came with a cleaning tool, which presses a finger backwards through all the holes. So press away, 30 seconds cleaning it, and tada, I’m done.
That said. I use a press when I want the garlic flavor to spread evenly and blend in with everything else. I chop it when I want to have identilfiable garlic flavor as you bite into a chunk.
If I’m going fresh I either chop or press it (like guacamole). If its going in something that cooks I use the jarlic. (Garlic that comes in jar - mine is a relatively small jar, I’d say about .01 metric buttload). But definitely agree that its a pain in the rear to use the press - first time I used it I was quite disappointed.
I just chop, or use the mortar and pestle when I need something more in paste form. The stuff that comes in a jar, in my experience, has been flavorless. I will sometimes buy whole peeled cloves in bulk, and then freeze them or bury them in a shitton of salt and put them in the fridge for when I need garlic in a pinch.
I only press it if it’s going into a dressing, or hummus or something of that sort. Pressed garlic isn’t meant for sauteeing. The aforementioned whacking and chopping is for a saute.