Garlic
Y'all I LOVE LOVE LOVE garlic. The heavenly scent of onions and mushrooms sauteing in olive oil and fresh garlic?! I might love that smell more than chocolate- but not more than freshly bathed babies. It's close though. Back in the days when I was a religious watcher of Food Network, I remember the Barefoot Contessa made chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic and I thought it sounded pretty doggone delicious!
Way back when I was a baby cook, and just beginning adulthood, I thought cooking with garlic meant using garlic powder. It's actually worse than that. I thought I was supposed to use garlic salt powder. WHAT!? Good news. I started watching Food Network, and I learned that's not cool. It's not what the real chefs use. And I like to do the right thing. Not to say that garlic powder doesn't have its place, frankly sometimes it does. I love it in my homemade Taco Seasoning and my Pork Rub.
For years I used "fresh" minced garlic that I bought in little jars from the produce section. Then I learned that's not totally cool either. My mother informed me that my brother informed her- fresh garlic is where it's at. I tried it. The taste is pretty doggone good. It's kind of like the difference between a grocery store tomato in July and a tomato from the garden in July. Fresh garden tomatoes are delicious. Like- fantastic. Grocery store tomatoes are okay if you don't have other options. Are fresh garden tomatoes worth the extra work? It's the same question you have to ask yourself with fresh garlic: Is it worth the effort?
Fresh garlic is frankly- a total pain in the ass. (Sorry for the strong language, but it's necessary to really get my point across.) It's true. It's completely aggravating. First, you pull a small clove off the bigger bulb. To get that smaller clove, you have to pull some of that papery, sticky peel away. It will cling to you, the counter, the knife, your hair, the cabinets, anything within a 20 foot radius. You'll wave it off your fingers, only for it to get stuck to your other hand, and then instead of chopping garlic, you're waving your hands around like a weirdo. Finally, you get all the little bits of peel off, you start chopping. Your hands will smell like garlic, the cutting board smells like garlic, everything smells like garlic. Which is fine for 10 minutes, and then you're just done with that waft of garlic constantly coming your way. All of that work and it's like the teeniest amount of garlic, so you do it all again because you misjudged how much garlic you actually wanted (garlic amounts in a recipe are merely recommendations- not hard and fast rules).
Way back when I was a baby cook, and just beginning adulthood, I thought cooking with garlic meant using garlic powder. It's actually worse than that. I thought I was supposed to use garlic salt powder. WHAT!? Good news. I started watching Food Network, and I learned that's not cool. It's not what the real chefs use. And I like to do the right thing. Not to say that garlic powder doesn't have its place, frankly sometimes it does. I love it in my homemade Taco Seasoning and my Pork Rub.
For years I used "fresh" minced garlic that I bought in little jars from the produce section. Then I learned that's not totally cool either. My mother informed me that my brother informed her- fresh garlic is where it's at. I tried it. The taste is pretty doggone good. It's kind of like the difference between a grocery store tomato in July and a tomato from the garden in July. Fresh garden tomatoes are delicious. Like- fantastic. Grocery store tomatoes are okay if you don't have other options. Are fresh garden tomatoes worth the extra work? It's the same question you have to ask yourself with fresh garlic: Is it worth the effort?
Fresh garlic is frankly- a total pain in the ass. (Sorry for the strong language, but it's necessary to really get my point across.) It's true. It's completely aggravating. First, you pull a small clove off the bigger bulb. To get that smaller clove, you have to pull some of that papery, sticky peel away. It will cling to you, the counter, the knife, your hair, the cabinets, anything within a 20 foot radius. You'll wave it off your fingers, only for it to get stuck to your other hand, and then instead of chopping garlic, you're waving your hands around like a weirdo. Finally, you get all the little bits of peel off, you start chopping. Your hands will smell like garlic, the cutting board smells like garlic, everything smells like garlic. Which is fine for 10 minutes, and then you're just done with that waft of garlic constantly coming your way. All of that work and it's like the teeniest amount of garlic, so you do it all again because you misjudged how much garlic you actually wanted (garlic amounts in a recipe are merely recommendations- not hard and fast rules).
After a trip to my brother and sister in law's, I realized a garlic mincer is the ticket. I mean- my sister in law just threw that garlic into the spaghetti sauce without any drama. Clearly I need the garlic mince. I bought one.
The first time I used it, I had to dig the garlic out of the little hole thingys. That was slightly annoying. The second time, I tried using it a little differently and flung garlic everywhere. (see it there on the burner, and under the dial for the temperature setting?!)
Then I decided Holy Unnecessary Efforts Batman. This is ridiculous. Why can't I do this?! It's garlic for Pete's Sake. Even on the Worst Cooks TV show they can successfully use garlic without all this ado. I'm just a bumbling dork. So- I will cook with garlic a lot this summer and by August I should be brilliant at mincing it. I hope. If not- than whatevs. There's always little jars of already minced garlic.
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