AndyTalk: Garlic and Gadgetry
Welcome to AndyTalk -- where Scottsdale-based chef and cooking instructor Andy Broder will share kitchen tips, recipes and musings on food and life. This week: mincing garlic.
I get a fair number of questions about how to mince garlic. My answer is always the same. I mince garlic with a knife.
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Most people who ask don't like the knife answer. Facial expressions and the slew of follow-up questions bear me out on this. I suspect that the frowners are hoping that I'll offer a secret chef's method for chopping garlic without getting garlic-scented fingers. Others hope I'll mention a gadget that they can rely on. There are lots of gadgets, but while I like my kitchen toys, there aren't any that I like to use with garlic. Sorry.
My least favorite gadgets are ones with a single function - and the worst of that ilk perform their one task with mediocrity. Why use a plastic tube to peel garlic? I can place the garlic on my cutting board, set the flat side of my knife on top, and hit the knife once. It takes just a few tries to learn how hard to hit the side of the knife (too hard and you get mashed garlic). Wham, bam, and no peel ma'am.
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Those tubes work, but the knife is just as easy. And, the tubes are scary. Bits of mashed garlic and peel happily reside in the tube - unseen and, I fear, unwashed. My gut tells me that half of all tubes are rarely washed, and the ones that are washed are only rinsed, not sanitized.
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Next in line for scrutiny (and hopefully my blessing) is the garlic press. A garlic press does a wonderful job of pulverizing garlic. The newer ones even have a sort of self-cleaning adaptation (that works reasonably well). Still, when garlic is pressed the result is a combination of garlic juice and garlic solids.
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I prefer to use a knife. I get tiny bits of garlic that have all the juices inside. In recipes where I'm applying heat I think this is important. If I hold the press right over the hot pan when I squeeze I will be rewarded with a nearly instantaneous whiff of garlic. The juice turns to steam when it hits the pan, and half of my flavor literally goes up in a puff of smoke.
When I use a knife I end up with small pieces of garlic that have not been wrung dry. With knife-cut garlic it takes longer for the aroma to fill my kitchen, but it's better that way. The little bits of juice-intact garlic caramelize as they cook. I get food seasoned with the nutty flavor of cooked garlic.
The garlic press concept applies to a number of other gadgets.
No one really needs an all-in-one apple slicer/corer. The gadget is based on an average apple. It won't work on a huge apple and it's hard to get a small apple to line up. A knife is a one size fits all apple slicer. With a knife I can make the slices as thin or thick as I want. Everything I said about apple slicers also applies to pineapple peeler/corers.
Knives that never need sharpening are on my list of thanks-but-no-thanks gadgets. A knife that never needs sharpening is (in all likelihood) a knife that can't be sharpened. The steel (often cheap) is really hard, so it holds an edge for a long time. But, once it's dull it's nearly impossible to grind the diamond-hard knife back to sharpness. I'd rather have one good knife than a gimmicky set of cheap ones.
Last among my low expectations are gadgets hawked on any shopping network. I relate this with experience. I'm a frequent beneficiary of a relative's binge TV shopping. I never use the as-seen-on TV gadgets.
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The Land-of-the-Giants syringe to infuse meat with flavor is cool to look at, but never used and donated to Goodwill. I can brine to achieve the same effect. The cake pan with moveable squares and a book of diagrams for cakes that, when sliced, have a pattern; never used and donated. The Neptune God-of-the-Sea six-pronged fork; never used but street-fight ready. This one I still have.
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On the other hand, I've never regretted the dollars spent on a good knife. In fact, when people look at the tool chest in my kitchen they'll often ask: "is that a real tool chest?" Yes, and they're real tools. That chest is my ultimate gadget - it holds all the other gadgets. It's also kind of fun to know that if I wanted to mince words, I could opine about how my toolbox is bigger and better equipped than average.
Andy Broder is the chef/owner of AndyFood, A Culinary Studio.
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