When you want a dish to have quintessential garlic flavor that permeates each bite, mince it. You can mince with a knife, or a garlic press.
Either way, you need to free the individual cloves. To do that, press down on the head with the heel of your palm. Apply firm, even pressure so the cloves don't fly all over the place.
To peel an individual clove, cut of the hard stem end where the clove attached to the bulb. Either stop the cut just short of the skin on the other side and peel the skin around to remove it, or make the cut all the way through and squeeze out the clove. The older the clove, the easier the skin releases.
You can also peel it by setting the side of your knife blade on the clove and pressing down until you feel the skin release, though not hard enough to pulverize it, or the skin will get mixed in with the garlic.
To mince with a knife, smash the peeled clove with the side of the knife. Then just run your knife back and forth across the smashed clove, chopping as you go until it's as fine as you like.
If you don't want individual little pieces of garlic and have a press, just put the whole peeled clove (or cloves, if you can fit them) in the press and squeeze. Use your knife to trim away any clinging garlic.
Do I need to salt eggplant before cooking it?
Do I need to salt eggplant before cooking it?
Sprinkling salt over eggplant slices before cooking them draws out the vegetable's moisture. It's a process known as "degorging".
Larger, older eggplants have brown seeds that contain a bitter liquid. Salting eggplants removes some of this liquid and improves their flavor. In general, it's not necessary to salt smaller eggplants since they have fewer seeds than larger eggplants.
Larger eggplants also tend to become soft and "melty" when cooked, so salting them before cooking leads to firmer, more leathery cooked texture. (Leathery in a good way, we think.)
To salt an eggplant, slice it and generously season the slices with kosher salt. Let them sit until you can see the liquid coming to the surface, 20-30 minutes. Rinse the slices well and pat them dry. It's also a good idea to use half as much salt as the recipe calls for (unless the recipe takes into account the fact that the eggplant has been salted).
Related Tip: How to cut an eggplant into slices (Cookthink)
Related Tip: How to cube an eggplant (Cookthink)
Why does Cookthink use red pepper flakes in so many recipes?
Why does Cookthink use red pepper flakes in so many recipes?
We use red pepper flakes so often that we've come to think of them as the third standard seasoning, after salt and pepper.
Why do we use red pepper flakes in so many recipes?
We use it as a flavor highlighter. In addition to the fives tastes -- sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami -- our tongues detect capsaicin, the main ingredient found in any hot chile. The heat of capsaicin in red pepper flakes "points up" the taste of ingredients they season. So, no matter what tastes and flavors you have going on in a dish, a pinch of red pepper flakes will help clarify and those tastes and flavors without necessarily adding heat (though you can add plenty of heat by adding red pepper flakes).
Experiment with red pepper flakes by starting out with a pinch in a dish like this Fusilli with Broccoli Raab and Parmesan. Increase (or decrease) the amount you use to get a sense of how much you like to add.
Recipe: New York Strip With Spicy Gremolata Dressing (Cookthink)
Reference: Measuring freshly ground black pepper (Cookthink)
What's the difference between yellow squash and zucchini?
What's the difference between yellow squash and zucchini?
What's the difference between yellow squash and zucchini. As far as cooking goes, not much -- just their skin color. We substitute one for the other all the time.
Both are so-called summer squashes that are picked while still immature, so that their thin skins and soft seeds are still edible. A yellow squash is of course yellow, with either a straight body and smooth rind or a crookneck and bumpy skin (which looks odd but is perfectly fine to eat).
Recipe: Zucchini Soup With Lime (Cookthink)
Recipe: Grilled Shrimp And Squash Kebabs (Cookthink)
Reference: Cucumber vs. zucchini (Cookthink)
Cubed eggplant is a good cut for any dish cooked on top of the stove, like stews, ragouts, and stir-frys. Remember that the cubes will lose moisture and size when cooked. To compensate, make the raw cubes about twice as big as you want the cooked cubes to be.
Cut the eggplant in half or thirds lengthwise, depending on the size of the eggplant and how large you want the cubes to be.
Cut each half or third lengthwise again into halves or thirds.
Now just line up the spears up and cut them crosswise into cubes. (Some of pieces will technically be triangles instead of cubes.)
Chopping is probably the most common way to prep an onion. Chopped onions show up in anything that needs the basic, earthy pungent flavor that onions give. Chop them larger for longer-cooking dishes like stews and rustic soups, and smaller (call it a dice if you like) for anything from salsas to sauces to ragouts.
To start, cut the onion in half through the root. The root itself will help keep the onion together for chopping
Rotate the onion 90 degrees and cut off the papery end (not the root end). This will make the skin easy to peel away and discard.
Peel back the onion's papery skin. It's often easiest to peel away the first layer of the onion along with the skin.
Make a series of diagonal cuts (roughly 45 degrees) into the side of the onion. Keep more space between the slices for a large chop. Make the cuts closer together for a small chop or a dice.
Now make a series of horizontal cuts to finish shaping the chop or dice.
Finally, rotate the onion again and slice crosswise against the checkerboard pattern you made in the onion. The chopped pieces will fall away from the onion.
