Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I don't know about you guys and gals, but this was pretty interesting. If you have not seen it check it out.

They used different garlic presses to make one garlic centric dish, and then compared how they differed in taste. Looks like I put a new GP on my list, mine is hard to clean and does not really produce a uniform product.

Any comments on garlic presses?

Yes. Don't use them.

A chef's knife is always superior to a press, imho.

Amy

Ah, but my sous-chef doesn't know how to do it with a chef's knife, plus the press doesn't require the cutting board....

Amy,

That depends on your definition of "superior".

If what you need is mashed garlic, and you only need 1 or 2 cloves, a garlic press is hard to beat. For example, I might need half a clove of mashed garlic for a salad dressing recipe. I'm going to do the whole chefs-knife-and-salt thing for that? Or spend 5 minutes in the mortar-and-pestle?

The garlic press is really an alternative to the mortar&pestle. Not an alternative to mincing garlic with a knife.

We must agree to disagree on that.

Amy

EB,
I am going to wait quietly with you. My Zyliss is dying, all the nonstick gone, and of late, when I press garlic, some of it will be a yucky gray-blue, which tells me there's an acid problem; probably caused by the dishwasher detergent.

I will wait to hear too. Mine is old and nasty but not broken so as soon as you give the word I am going to stomp on mine.

Mary

Amy,

I think they must throw you out of chef school if you're caught with a garlic press. Everybody I know who is professionally trained has a dogmatically anti-garlic-press attitude.

I'm with EB. I had to mince one large clove of garlic for a recipe and decided I *should* use my chef's knife. It took waaay more time than if I had used the press, and I don't think I could tell the difference - or if I could, I probably wouldn't care after a full day of work.

The coating has pretty much peeled off mine so if a definitive answer is found, I'm all ears.

For a reason.

Amy