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.
what you should know
Our anti-fruit sauce zealotry got some people worked up last week. As a gesture of fruit-love, we decided to make peace with this week's root source on lemon zest.
why zest? James Beard chose the perfect word when he wrote that the lemon is "irreplaceable" in cooking. Lemon dignifies whatever it touches. Zest, the outer, yellow surface, is the intense, perfumed essence of the lemon. As a bright flavoring or finish, it acts like a spice or an herb. When you zest a lemon, you're basically taking the color from it and using that color to enliven something else.
5 zest notes 1. Buy firm, thick-skinned lemons that are heavy for their size. 2. Non-organic lemons have been sprayed with pesticides and other treatments. They've also been handled, dropped on the floor, and who knows what else. Before zesting a lemon, scrub it with a brush and a little soap and water. Then, rinse it well and dry it. 3. Zest only the outer yellow surface of the lemon. Avoid the bitter, white pith just below the surface. (And unless you're a "fruit detective," also avoid the pith helmet.) 4. Don't zest the lemon until you're ready to use it. 5. Then again, get in the habit of zesting every lemon you buy. If you're not using the zest right away, it will keep for a few months in the freezer.
what you need
How you zest a lemon depends on what kind of zest you want. For a fine, airy zest, use a Microplane or some other fine grater. For a julienne cut, use a zester. For longer, thicker strips of zest, use a vegetable peeler.
Cookbook author Lori Longbotham specializes in desserts, but in her comprehensive Lemon Zest, she features some delicious savory dishes as well.
what you do
As a nod to the last days of winter, brighten a dish of collard greens and white beans with lemon zest and hot sauce.
As a nod to the first days of spring (one more week), get outside and grill a New York strip with a spicy gremolata vinaigrette.
As a nod to arborio rice (why not?), try this cremini mushroom risotto that highlights the natural affinity between thyme and lemon.
Sealed inside parchment paper, lemon zest perfumes a salmon, fennel and potato papillote.
Lemon zest adds a bright spark to a dish. There are lots of tools for zesting a lemon -- zester, a knife -- but it's hard to go wrong with a fine grater (such as the popular Microplane version), which makes a beautiful light zest that melds into a dish and gives great flavor.
To zest with the Microplane, just rub the lemon in one direction against the little blades. Turn the lemon as you go so you remove only the yellow part -- the zest. You don't want the white pith just beneath -- it's bitter.
If you use a traditional zester, which makes long, thin strands of zest, or a knife, be sure to finely chop the strands with a knife. The finer shrivels of zest will permeate the dish better than the strands.
To get the most flavor out of lemon zest, add it toward the end of cooking.
Recipe: Agnolotti With Eggplant, Tomatoes And Garlic (Cookthink)
Recipe: Broccoli With Fettuccine, Lemon Zest And Parmesan (Cookthink)
Recipe: Cremini Mushroom Risotto With Lemon Zest (Cookthink)
Reference: What is a Meyer lemon? (Cookthink)
