How to Mince Garlic

Rest the bulb of garlic on a cutting board. Lay your palm flat across the top and lean your body weight straight down. Frank Proto calls this garlic CPR - one good press and the cloves break free from the head.

To peel the loose cloves, smash each one gently with the flat of a chef's knife. The skin cracks and slides right off. For a big batch, drop the cloves between two metal bowls (lips together), shake hard for ten seconds, and most will come out clean. The two-bowl trick is roughly 70 percent effective - chase the stragglers by hand.

Trim the woody root end off a peeled clove and discard it. Lay the clove flat on the board and run your chef's knife through it in thin slices. Rotate the pile 90 degrees and cut across once or twice.

Now plant the tip of the knife on the board and rock the blade back and forth through the pile, gathering the garlic with your free hand and chopping again until the pieces are uniform. Frank calls this the French way - dainty, fine, and it punches up to an 8 or 9 on the flavor scale. Use this mince for sauteed dishes, soups, salad dressings, and stocks.

Hold a fine microplane over a small bowl - never over the cutting board, because the wood absorbs the oil and you lose half the flavor. Grip a peeled clove at the root end and drag the side of the clove across the rasp with firm, even pressure.

You get a fluffy mound of nearly-paste with maximum surface area, which means maximum flavor release. On the scale, this hits a 9 or 10. Use it for Caesar dressing, garlic bread butter, raw vinaigrettes, or any dish where you want a spicy garlic punch with no visible chunks.

Drop a single peeled clove into the press hopper. No need to chop or smash it first - the press handles whole cloves. Close the handles and squeeze hard. Garlic, juice, and aromatic oil ooze through the holes onto your cutting board or straight into a hot pan.

Pressed garlic clocks in at an 11 on the flavor scale - even more aggressive than mincing or grating - because every cell wall gets crushed and every drop of allicin is released. Reach for the press in Caesar salad, garlic butter, and quick weeknight pasta sauces. Scrape the spent skin out between cloves - models with a flip-out cleaner save you a lot of headache.

Mince your garlic with the knife as in Step 2. Sprinkle a generous pinch of kosher salt directly onto the pile. Lay the flat side of your knife on the garlic and drag the blade across the board, pressing down on the spine of the knife with your fingertips.

The salt acts as an abrasive. The cell walls break down and the pile turns glossy and creamy in about thirty seconds. This is the chef's secret for Caesar dressing, aioli, garlic bread butter, and pesto - anywhere a recipe calls for grated or pressed garlic but you want even smoother integration into the fat.

Not every dish needs fine mince. Trim the root end, give the peeled clove a single whack with the side of your knife, and run the blade through it three or four times. You want visible chunks, not paste.

Rough chop is the right move for meatballs, stuffings, and bolognese - anywhere you want to taste a little garlic without it overpowering everything else. For a tomato sauce or braised dish that simmers an hour or more, skip the chopping entirely and drop in whole or lightly smashed cloves. They melt into mellow sweetness and rate just a 2 on the flavor scale.

Whole unpeeled bulbs keep three to five months in a cool, dry, dark spot. A wire basket on the counter or a paper bag in the pantry both work. Never the fridge - cold humidity makes them sprout. Peeled cloves last about a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Minced or pressed garlic should be covered with a thin layer of olive oil in a small jar and refrigerated for no more than four days. Never store raw garlic in oil at room temperature - that's a botulism risk. For long-term storage, spread minced garlic in a thin layer on parchment paper, freeze it flat, then break it into chunks. It keeps three months in the freezer and goes straight from frozen into a hot pan.

Skip the pre-chopped jarred garlic entirely. Frank calls it garbage that tastes like chemicals - and Anthony Bourdain put it best: too lazy to peel fresh garlic, you don't deserve to eat garlic.