Learn Something New - Mincing Garlic

If you never use fresh garlic, here's your chance to learn how to work with it and stop being afraid of it. I can't remember the last time I used the powdered stuff. Fresh garlic adds such great flavor, and there's just no substitute. I'm honestly not even sure I think the powdered stuff tastes like garlic.

First thing's first - peeling!

Place garlic clove on your cutting board. Put your blade over the garlic, and give it a good whack with the heel of your hand.

This will pop the garlic from the skin. Then you can just easily slide the clove out, and it also makes the next step, mincing, much easier since it's already smashed.

Here comes the second part - mincing!

Keeping the tip of your knife on the board, run the knife over the garlic until it's in very small pieces. If you don't like chunks of garlic, here's a neat trick. Put some coarse salt on your pile of minced garlic.

Then lay your knife flat, put your hand on the top, and "drag" the garlic one direction with the knife and then back the other way. You'll have to do this several times, but it'll make the garlic into a paste instead of just minced pieces.

Another great trick for those of you who don't like pieces of garlic in your food at all. You can drop an entire garlic clove (or 2 or 3....) into your food, let it cook for a few minutes, and then remove the entire clove. The garlic flavor will infuse into your food without any pieces of garlic.

You can do that with garlic bread as well. Toast your bread, and then rub a clove or garlic over the bread while it's still hot.