Any Home Bakers Here?

[jnicholes]

 

[pennyJo1960]

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Great spaces and you guy's bought this right ?

 

[jnicholes]

Great spaces and you guy's bought this right ?

Yep, we bought it.

 

[jnicholes]

Two questions, both about baking.

First,

How do I prepare fresh garlic?

Second, I’ve seen some recipes call for minced garlic, some call for crushed garlic, others call for whole garlic. Why is this? What’s the difference between minced, crushed, and whole garlic?

 

[wyoDreamer]

To use fresh garlic you must peel off the outer papery covering and then break the cloves apart. You can just break off the cloves you want or you can put the head of garlic down and crush it with your palm - the cloves should break apart.

Minced garlic is a very small dice of a peeled clove of garlic. Chop it up with a knife.

Crushed garlic - you can use a garlic crusher if you have one or you can crush a clove on a cutting board with the side of your knife and kind of squash it and smear it onto the cutting board, then use the knife to scrape it up and drop it in your pan.

Whole garlic is a whole clove that is broken off the head of garlic and the papery covering peeled off. I always cut off the root end, some people don't.

Minced garlic will add bits of garlic and some garlic flavor through out the dish.
Crushed garlic will add more flavor to a sauce or liquid because the cells are damaged and the juices will come out and still add bits of garlic goodness.
Whole garlic would usually be for simmering into a liquid, to be removed before final prep to make a smooth sauce. Or, roasted as a whole head of garlic and then squeezed out to make a garlic that is spreadable.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Jared, in some dishes you just want the flavor of the garlic, which is savory and delightful. So you crush or mince it to get the oils.*Rarely do you want a whole clove of garlic in your mouth! Sometimes you don't mind getting a LITTLE more than just the oils, so you chop it fine. A good example is if you add it to hot oil to flavor the oil so it cooks a little along with chopped onion for example to flavor meat. Careful not to crisp it or blacken it, though, that makes it bitter. You can bury whole cloves in the fat cap of a roast before baking.

*ETA Example, soups.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

To use fresh garlic you must peel off the outer papery covering and then break the cloves apart. You can just break off the cloves you want or you can put the head of garlic down and crush it with your palm - the cloves should break apart.

Minced garlic is a very small dice of a peeled clove of garlic. Chop it up with a knife.

Crushed garlic - you can use a garlic crusher if you have one or you can crush a clove on a cutting board with the side of your knife and kind of squash it and smear it onto the cutting board, then use the knife to scrape it up and drop it in your pan.

Whole garlic is a whole clove that is broken off the head of garlic and the papery covering peeled off. I always cut off the root end, some people don't.

Minced garlic will add bits of garlic and some garlic flavor through out the dish.
Crushed garlic will add more flavor to a sauce or liquid because the cells are damaged and the juices will come out and still add bits of garlic goodness.
Whole garlic would usually be for simmering into a liquid, to be removed before final prep to make a smooth sauce. Or, roasted as a whole head of garlic and then squeezed out to make a garlic that is spreadable.

I use a zester to make minced garlic. It is more uniform than using a knife.

 

[Rajirrah]

Two questions, both about baking.

First, View attachment 2679368

How do I prepare fresh garlic?

Second, I’ve seen some recipes call for minced garlic, some call for crushed garlic, others call for whole garlic. Why is this? What’s the difference between minced, crushed, and whole garlic?

I prepare my garlic differently, depending on what I'm going to do and how much I need.

First, you need to separate the cloves. I usually roll the bulb around between my palms to get rid of the excess outer skin. Pulling from the upper tip helps, but there's usually some left.

Next, pull the cloves apart from the bulb. To get to the meat of each clove you'll use the flat of a large bladed knife. Place the clove on your cutting surface ant crush it under the blade. Fresh garlic will crunch. This will loosen up the meat and it will separate easily from its skin. Pick out all the dry skin bits and there you have your crushed garlic.

Crushing garlic this way releases its juices and makes it more flavorful. This is good enough for many recipes, but most of the time you'll likely want to mince the garlic further. You can use a food processor to do this, but with your knife, you can chop it up as fine as you want. I find it best to use a broad very sharp knife with a curved wedge shape. This let's you use a rocking motion while the garlic is under it. Moving back and forth until all the garlic is minced to your desired fineness. You'll occasionally need to wipe the garlic from the side of the blade and add it back to the garlic on your cutting surface.

Here is the shape of blade that works best. Its wide enough to crush the garlic and the curved shape is good for the mincing.

I hope this helps.

 

[BullChick]

Shaking a bulb of garlic in a jar will get all of the paper off, and the cloves separated.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Bakers good morning one and all!

Have a great day!