Everything’s better with garlic. Here’s how you chop it.
There’s nothing quite like the magnetic scent of freshly cut garlic to attract attention to action going on in the kitchen. And then, of course, there’s the fantastic punch of flavor it adds to whatever’s on the stove, in the oven or on the grill. Just make sure you pick firm, fresh bulbs when you buy garlic as shown directly below. Then crunch, slice, chop and let it rip! Watch this short step-by-step video showing how to chop garlic:
Needed
Fresh Garlic Bulb
Sharp Wide Bladed (Chef’s) Knife
Cutting Board
1. Twist and tear off the papery stem from the top of the garlic bulb. Sometimes the stem top is already cut, but if it’s still intact, tearing it off will make removing garlic cloves (individual garlic segments) as shown in step 2 much easier.
2. Pull as many cloves from the garlic bulb as needed for your recipe.
3. To make peeling the garlic skin as easy as possible, lay the garlic cloves on the cutting board, cover them one at a time with the side of a wide bladed knife, put the heel of your free hand on the top flat side of the knife blade and press with enough pressure until you feel the garlic skin break open.
4. Peel the skin from the garlic cloves.
5. Hold each garlic clove to the cutting board firmly with curled fingers. Use your curled forefinger knuckle as a guide and let the side of the knife blade slide against it as you cut the garlic into slices about 1/8th inch wide.
Chop the garlic slices into smaller pieces.
Scrape the scattered garlic pieces together with the knife blade.
Carefully use your fingers to remove the garlic pieces from the side of the knife by sliding the side of your fingers down the blade from the back, blunt side of the knife toward the sharp edge. To avoid getting cut, which can easily happen, don’t slide your finger along or parallel to the sharp knife edge.
Continue gathering and chopping the garlic pieces until what you have looks about like this.
Now that you’ve got garlic, make something awesome with it: Pan Seared Scallops
Images courtesy of Bruce Tretter
About Bruce Tretter
No, no, no…
You get a razor and you slice it so thin it will liquefy in the pan with just a little oil. It’s a very good system.
Then you complain about too much onions in the sauce. But you got to have the pork for the flavor.
You really shouldn’t use your knife blade as a scraper – it dulls it so fast! Even just looking at that picture hurt my soul a little.