How to Chop Garlic
[Intro music]
A garlic head is composed of garlic cloves,
so there are several cloves in one head.
To separate the cloves break the head
a little bit. Press down.
Remove the first layer of skin.
And separate the cloves. Okay.
Then cut both ends and peel off the skin.
[peeling sounds] The skin of fresh
garlic can be sticky sometimes.
So it's normal, it's the oil of the garlic.
Before you chop your garlic after peeling it
there is something you must learn.
Garlic has two elements that are not edible.
At least one that nobody eats,
it's the skin, called the peel.
And the second one, it's called
the germ of the garlic.
Let me show you where it is.
Simply cut lengthwise the garlic clove
through the core and pick out the germ.
So you see from the root side here,
it's growing on the inside.
Okay. Eventually this little thing here,
some people call it the seed,
will become green when it germinates.
This is why we call it a germ.
So with the point of the paring knife
just pick it up. You see.
And do the same part for the other
half of the garlic clove.
The germ of the garlic here,
is the weapon of mass destruction,
a nuclear bomb waiting to explode
in your stomach. This is full of acid.
Combined with the enzymes of
your stomach this will make a
chemical reaction and you will be
burping all day eating garlic.
You will have bad breath.
And even worse sometimes when people
will have stomach ache.
So if you like the people you cook for,
you must take it off. Okay.
In my cooking, I love everybody,
so I always remove it.
So from now on, no more germ of garlic
in your food, ever. Deal?
To chop the garlic
there are several techniques out there.
The first one and the most common one
you will see on TV and many books
is to crush garlic or to cream the garlic.
Personally it's not something I teach and I
don't recommend it.
My job is to teach you how to cook safely.
So why would you send your hand
towards a sharp blade. It's not safe.
So do not do that.
Leave that to chefs on TV that
cook with garlic and with the germ. Okay.
So in order to chop the garlic,
you have two options.
Option number one is to slice the garlic
[slicing sounds]
And then mince it, up and down.
Okay. The garlic may be sticky a little bit.
So you can put a pinch of salt on your garlic
to prevent sticking. Add a bit of salt.
[slicing sounds] And you will continue.
The second option is to use a garlic press.
I know, it's not very professional,
but I prefer you to use a garlic press,
rather than to crush the garlic like so.
Okay. So, slice all your garlic.
[slicing sounds] And mince.
So we go back to the mincing technique.
Clean the blade.
Move the food back into a neat pile.
And mince it until it's very fine. [slicing sounds]
Now my garlic is finely minced,
but why not to ciseler the garlic.
Ciseler or to dice the garlic finely.
So with my index finger, I'm going to position
it on the top of the clove.
And I'm using a paring knife.
I'm going to make many parallel cuts.
There we go. Need one more here
There we go. Then, like so.
And finally [slicing sounds]
We get it in small cubes.
There you go.
I suggest you practice both ways.
And in any case, you know what
you have to do when you use garlic,
remove the germ.