4

I use a lot of garlic in my cooking, especially minced garlic. But lately I've been doing some more recipes with crushed garlic and while I love the texture of cooked garlic, I can't see how it could be better than minced garlic for the overall taste.

Is there an advantage to crushed garlic over minced garlic, beyond texture?

Improve this question
7
  • Hi Mark - it'd be great if you could leave out those extra tags, please. The [texture] and [ingredients] tags are essentially leftovers from a mess that we haven't gotten around to cleaning up yet (long story). Sorry for the confusion and thanks.
    – Aaronut
    Dec 7, 2010 at 22:09
  • I don't see the advantage of removing those tags, what's the point? If there are more tag terms, questions are easier to find for people searching for them. I don't see how less tags is better than having more tags.
    – Mark Rogers
    Dec 7, 2010 at 22:53
  • A straightforward, easy-to-understand tagging convention of foods, techniques, and equipment (the main subjects that are on topic) is absolutely preferable to a polluted and inconsistent system that tries to cover every conceivable theme. More tags are not better if the tags don't identify specific areas of expertise/interest, and you'll have to work hard to convince me that there are people out there looking for information on "ingredients", sans context. You might want to look at some of our earlier meta discussions where this was debated at length.
    – Aaronut
    Dec 7, 2010 at 23:56
  • 1
    Sure I can see your case with 'ingredients' (...I guess), but what about 'texture'? Don't you think it's conceivable that some might search for the tags garlic and texture, or meat and texture, in order to study the texture of a particular ingredient? You may not know but you can cross search between two tags, among other search methods. What is the counter argument to that? Someone may be studing cooking and texture in general as I have been lately.
    – Mark Rogers
    Dec 8, 2010 at 0:37
  • Another counter argument is that as the volume of questions increases the need for more tags will become greater. At some point there will probably be 50-100 garlic questions, which most users will not want to sift through one at a time. By adding additional tags a particular question will be found more quickly by more people.
    – Mark Rogers
    Dec 8, 2010 at 0:50

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
11

Yes. The more finely you process your garlic, the more of the flavour-bearing liquid is released from ruptured cells.

Improve this answer
10
  • So you are saying that there is no advantage beyond texture for crushed garlic over minced garlic?
    – Mark Rogers
    Dec 5, 2010 at 20:27
  • 2
    A garlic press is a wholly useless, difficult to clean unitasker. Their sale should be forbidden by law.
    – daniel
    Dec 7, 2010 at 3:30
  • 1
    Although I agree with you, I thought the mechanism was a little different. I think that rupturing the cells causes a chemical reaction to take place, changing the flavor profile, rather than losing liquid. At least, that's what I remember from McGee (which is not accessible right now)
    – yossarian
    Dec 7, 2010 at 23:21
  • 4
    And I like my garlic press. Although it's a unitasker, I use it 5-7 times a week and the one I have is very easy to clean and will make good work of a garlic clove even with it's papery skin on. Garlic also keeps a better flavor if it doesn't spend too long in chopped / crushed form. It wants to be cooked immediately. A press makes this much easier too. At least I'm not getting mine out of a jar anymore. ;o)
    – yossarian
    Dec 7, 2010 at 23:23
  • 1
    why bother? you can puree garlic with a standard knife faster and with less fuss.
    – daniel
    Dec 8, 2010 at 2:19
0

If you fry garlic too long it develops an unpleasant taste. In my experience minced garlic does this faster and more easily than crushed garlic.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.