November 29, 2004

4:14 PM

It's the 21st century and I'm tired of analog garlic preparation! I love to add fresh -- not pre-bottled -- garlic to almost everything. However, I hate having to deal with a crappy garlic press, which usually leaves my hands covered in garlic juice and big strings of pulp. Can anyone recommend some kind of fancy-pants machine to peel and press cloves for me?
posted by jess to (28 comments total)

You could do it by hand, the French way, which I actually find is the quickest and easiest. Hit the clove with the handle of a big knife, which will crush it and pretty neatly separate the skin from the garlic. Then just chop the already smashed garlic into small pieces -- if you use a wooden cutting board, the smashed garlic should stay still enough that you don't really have to touch it.
posted by occhiblu at 4:17 PM on November 29, 2004

What occhiblu said, except I usually press down on it with either the flat of my cheap chef's knife (No Shun for me yet) or use my bench scraper (aka my drywall knife).
posted by keswick at 4:22 PM on November 29, 2004

A sharp knife and a good cutting board. It's the only way to do garlic. Well, the only way anyone should do garlic.

Garlic presses are for barbarians.
posted by loquacious at 4:24 PM on November 29, 2004

A very fine grater works well. You still have to peel, and your hands still stink of garlic, but the actual chopping is wicked fast, and the results are pretty nice.
posted by Chuckles at 4:28 PM on November 29, 2004

usually you just want to roll it on something until the skin starts sloughing off (the plastic garlic pads that you can buy in stores pretty much provide the friction and keep your hands away from the garlic, so you might want to try this). i'm not into pulverizing cloves as a shortcut to remove the skin, but I know many folks who use that method. it *is* quicker, i'll admit.

however!

i also hate peeling garlic (i hate food prep so much -- it's my least favorite part of cooking); when I lived in berkeley, i would simply buy bags of fresh pre-peeled whole garlic cloves from berkeley bowl. They were maybe a buck or two for something like 20 peeled cloves, so they didn't seem at all expensive to me -- they don't last all that long in the fridge (a couple of weeks, i think), but maybe you want to give some of the smaller gourmet type supermarkets around your neighborhood a closer look (given, berkeley bowl is a special kind of store, but I can't imagine they're the only folks selling fresh-pre-peeled garlic).
posted by fishfucker at 4:30 PM on November 29, 2004

Knife + cutting board is the best; a good tip is that you can completely remove the garlic smell from your fingers just by running them under cold water and then rubbing them on some kind of steel item, such as your faucet. This sounds crazy, but try it--it really does remove the smell. They make special soap-shaped steel blocks for washing garlic off your hands for exactly this purpose.
posted by josh at 4:47 PM on November 29, 2004

Although it seems that the entire world is going towards the flashy new digital machines, I find the best garlic preparation can only be produced with analog equipment.

First, let's start with the press. Toss out the Wusthof; it's crap. I find that the $450 gold-plated Shun is able to pull out the sweet upper octaves of the clove and deliver lush, harmonic textures.

To maximize skin effect, be sure to connect the garlic press to your cutting board with 4-gauge wire. Also, be sure that the press is properly calibrated so that it is phase correct. I've seen adverts in the back of Garlicophile for places that can both calibrate and "burn-in" your press for under a grand. Having your press "burned-in" by an expert is highly recommended.

Finally, don't skimp on the cutting board! Be sure to use a Pure Virgin Teflon board and nothing else! Anything by Braun is good. Also, be sure to dampen your board properly to prevent smearing. You can use wooden resonator disks made from a special tree only found in Asia. Equilibre sells some for $8,475 each.
posted by rajbot at 5:01 PM on November 29, 2004

This Rösle garlic press, while expensive, works nicely on cloves still in their peels and cleans up easily.

And loquacious is in error, there's nothing wrong with garlic presses if you were going to mince the garlic anyway.

And of course I second all rajbot's recommendations.
posted by nicwolff at 5:29 PM on November 29, 2004

Garlic presses are superfluous, a pain to clean, and not nearly as much fun as doing it yourself.

Three-part process:
1. Peel the garlic clove. I use one of these, and they're great.

2. Smash the garlic with the flat wide part of a chef's knife. If the resulting pieces are too large, chop as required.

3. PROFIT!!!
posted by Vidiot at 5:33 PM on November 29, 2004

Thanks, nicwolff. I came in here hoping to find suggestions as, for reasons we need not go into, handling garlic can be quite painful, and I tire of using gloves. Purists be damned, I just want to cook.
posted by frykitty at 5:47 PM on November 29, 2004

Boil some water and plunge the loose cloves in it for a minute or two. The skins will come off easily.

Generally, it's only worth it to do this if you have a bunch to do - otherwise I just stick with the knife smash.
posted by Caviar at 5:52 PM on November 29, 2004

A cheap alternative to a garlic pad is a rubber jar opener (often given as promo items). A quick roll peels ir right well and little Scope works wonders to get the smell off your fingers.
posted by pedantic at 6:27 PM on November 29, 2004

I second Vidiot's linked garlic peeler. Banjo and I saw one of these at my folks' place over Thanksgiving and it rocked her culinary socks.

Beyond that, she uses the tried and true "Smash clove with knife while Robocop freaks out about her cutting her hand open."
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:36 PM on November 29, 2004

Well, I'm one barbarian who really likes his Zyliss garlic press. It absolutely annihilates the garlic (if that's what you're looking for). And it cleans up fairly easily. That's what I use when I'm in need of a lot of crushed garlic. If it's only one clove, I'll peel and mince.

(BTW - hurray for my first post!!!)
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 8:02 PM on November 29, 2004

I second the Zyliss recommendation. You don't have to peel the cloves either - it does take a bit more effort to squeeze unpeeled cloves through, but cleanup is a snap.

For knife-smashing I prefer to simply lean my hand on the blade and push until the skin cracks. No blade paranoia that way.
posted by O9scar at 8:24 PM on November 29, 2004

rajbot, please verify this theory with DBT results.

I process garlic the same as occhiblu - it is simple, fast, leaves lots of flavor and you barely need to touch the garlic with your delicate fingers. If you must avoid all touch, you can put an unpeeled clove or two through the press - the inner part goes through and the peel stays behind. Dig out the peel with the point of a sharp knife and then clean the press in the dishwasher - no touching with fingers required!
posted by caddis at 8:34 PM on November 29, 2004

I cannot tell you how excited I was to learn this. Trust me, go into your kitchen and get garlic or onion juice all over your hands, make a hug mess so you're hands will stink for a week. Then wet them in water and dump a table spoon or so of salt into your hands and rub the salt in as if it was soap. Use soap too if you want but the salt should take care of the smell, stickiness, and everything else. Then just rinse your hands off.

It doesn't matter what tool you use, get messy and just pull out the salt.

pwb.
posted by pwb503 at 8:45 PM on November 29, 2004

I third the Zyliss. It is excellent. Chef's Choice also makes a good one, but I think the Zyliss edges it out by a hair.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:13 PM on November 29, 2004

Exactly what occhiblu said.

That's what chefs do. Watch an episode of Yan Can Cook to see how he does it. I learnt it from him about 14 years ago.

It takes only 5 seconds to mince garlic with a sharp knife. 10 if you're looking elsewhere or are blindfolded. ;)
(yes, I know - show off!)
posted by madman at 11:25 PM on November 29, 2004

I can't vouch for how well it works, as I only just saw it in a catalog after seeing this question a bit ago, but there's a gizmo called a "Genius Garlic Cutter" [froogle] "Works just like a pepper mill! Simply load in peeled garlic cloves and twist the top, for perfectly uniform, small minced cubes of garlic. Great for pizza, garlic bread, table use, seasoning foods on the grill... Surgical stainless steel cutting blades with a stainless steel body. Dishwasher safe. Made in Germany."
posted by crunchland at 11:31 PM on November 29, 2004

If finely chopping doesn't do it for you...

... then salt will.

Pour a teaspoon or so of salt on your chopping board. Having whacked and skinned your garlic clove in the approved manner ("take that! splat! wham! aah!"), put the garlic on top of the salt, lay your broad flat knife side-on on top of the garlic and progressively squish/crush/scrape the clove against the salt. It will smoosh into salted garlic paste, suitable for whatever happens next.

BTW, if you have stinky fingers, whether garlic, fish, or whatever, lemon juice takes it away, and gives you lovely soft hands as a bonus.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:45 PM on November 29, 2004

If you're going to cook the garlic, crushing with a knife or mincing is fine. But if you're going to use it raw, then a garlic press is the only way to go. A good press gets the juices out, where they can mix better with the other ingredients. For large cloves, cut them in half lengthwise first, and remove the germ in the center -- it's often bitter when raw.

I've never bothered to use steel, salt, or lemon juice to clean the smell off my fingers. Cold water does the trick perfectly, as long as you don't use any soap.
posted by fuzz at 5:52 AM on November 30, 2004

And loquacious is in error, there's nothing wrong with garlic presses if you were going to mince the garlic anyway.

Snobbery be damned, but unless you're "dissolving" your garlic in a soup or stew, a press will definitely lower the quality of your garlic. As fuzz just pointed out, pushing garlic through a press separates the solids and juices. If you're frying your garlic (either as a base or alongside something else- the most common method), you want any food as intact as possible. The liquid from pressed garlic just evaporates, leaving you with a low-flavor pulp which is more likely to burn. Intact pieces of garlic keep their flavor.
posted by mkultra at 6:54 AM on November 30, 2004

Just give the clove a quick whack with a meat tenderizing hammer, remove the husk, and you're done.
posted by icey at 8:32 AM on November 30, 2004

Now... what type of garlic to use?
posted by five fresh fish at 10:39 AM on November 30, 2004

Here you go, FFF - An overview of garlic varieties to help you decide.

The page is ugly as sin, but it has lots of info.
posted by icey at 11:27 AM on November 30, 2004

rajbot, I find that pulverizing the cloves with a Shakti Stone is the only civilized way to produce minced garlic.
posted by LimePi at 2:01 PM on November 30, 2004

Cool. Thx, icey.

Oooh, hey:

Elephant garlic is not a true garlic; it a leek. All garlic species are botanically classified as Allium Sativum and elephant garlic is Allium Ampeloprasum, formerly Allium Gigantum.

Hah! I always snubbed those awful things, and now I know I was right to do so.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:59 PM on November 30, 2004