I like to cook. No, I really like to cook. Back in the day photography was my craft, and cooking was my art. I still take photographs but don’t get paid to do it anymore. Cooking for friends and neighbors is a pleasure. It’s not without stress. But I love it. Will the brisket in the smoker be tender? The temp has stalled. Should I introduce the Texas Crutch or should I wait a bit? Collagen needs around 195°f to melt and get the meat tender, the probe only reads 165°f! Panic at the smoker. Really not. It’s just Barbecue. Just like anything else, experience over the years gives you the tools to make better food.
Speaking of tools, lets talk about garlic and how to make minced garlic or garlic paste. We all know that the finer you mince garlic the more powerful it tastes. When I make pasta sauces and marinades I like assertive garlic to be involved. Alas, I’m a bit lazy about mincing garlic. I don’t use a 10” chef’s knife or a Santoku (albeit I probably have one of each in my knife hoard collection). My favorite kitchen knife is a Chinese meat cleaver made by Dexter Russell. The blade is not as tall as their Chinese vegetable cleaver. The real problem is that I don’t want to stand there and mince and chop that much. My tool of choice for this task is a garlic press. But the 30 year old Italian garlic press I have is a joke. Put a peeled garlic clove into it and squeeze tightly and most of the garlic squishes and comes out the back of the tool rather through the perforations in the front. Every time I use it I note that I should have just used a knife, but I forget.
Prior to my last birth anniversary She Who Must Be Obeyed asked what might make a good gift. I suggested a new garlic press that actually worked. Which one? She asked. Everybody and their garlic had opinions on the inter web as to which one She should buy for me. Amazon displayed the contenders that all of the publications and experts purported as being the pinnacle of garlic presses. I unwrapped the present She gave me. It was the “Kuhn Rikon Switzerland Epicurean Garlic Press Stainless Steel”. I’m a little confused by the name because it’s made in China. This new press is heavy duty stainless steel as apposed to the aluminum alloy of my old Italian garlic press. It’s got bigger holes to push garlic thru and they claim you don’t need to even peel the garlic!
I’m dying to try it out but have no recipes on my list to make with garlic. Maybe I’ll squish a bunch and freeze little pucks in an ice cube tray for later. But I really don’t want to use one of our ice cube trays for fear of having garlic flavored iced tea forever.
Serendipitously our nice neighbor came over with a paper bag of garlic for us. She said she bought too much. (I think there is a plot to force me to use the new garlic press.) I was now almost committed to take action. On my next trip to Target I found a little silicone Ice cube tray for $3 that had 14 skinny slots to make ice pellets to go into water bottles.
Even though they said you don’t have to peel the garlic with this press, I still peeled 4 small heads of garlic and two large ones. A couple were hard neck the rest were soft neck. After half an hour this, I netted a lunch plate heaped with garlic. I started pressing. It was not hard to do with the Kuhn Rikon. Almost all of the garlic came through the holes like it’s supposed to. It took me a solid 20 minutes to press everybody and then I filled the special ice tray with the pressings, covered it with Saran and popped it into the freezer. Now I have no excuse not to make the pasta sauce She has been wanting.
Epilogue: Once the garlic pods were frozen I popped them out of the silicone tray and put them into a plastic bag and put them back in the freezer. I saved out two and made the pasta sauce She had been wanting.
It’s a good thing I did’t use one of our ice cube trays to freeze the garlic. After seriously washing the new little Target silicon tray twice, it still smelled like the bathroom door of a tuna boat.
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