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.
Whether it's visible or not, vegetables usually have dirt, dust and other residue on them. Here's an easy and thorough way to wash all kinds of leafy greens:
Grab a bowl large enough to easily hold the greens and fill it with lukewarm water. Submerge the greens in the water and shake them back and forth to dislodge or dissolve the dirt. Then just lift the greens out of the water so the dirt stays behind. Pour out the water and repeat with clean water until the water stays clear when you pull out the greens.
Pot likker, otherwise known as pot or collard liquor, is the greenish, pork-flavored liquid that results from slow-cooking collard greens (or mustard or turnip greens) with ham hocks, fatback and salt. Pot likker is eaten like a soup, often by adding hot sauce and sopping it up with rolls or cornbread.
Southerners believe this potion to be a vitamin-packed cure for what ails them.
