A Dinner Party Trick

The prospect of peeling and mincing a garlic clove can be pretty daunting. Between the cellophane-like peel, the simultaneously sticky and slippery clove, and then cleaning up the mess with those slippery sticky fingers, it's amazing that so many recipes call for it.

Well, two weeks ago, I was introduced to this video, and after watching it twice three times I assumed it had to be magic.



How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.

So this afternoon I reached into the drawer to grab a head of garlic in order to start peeling away for this Black Bean Chili. As the dreaded process was about to ensue, Matt says to me, "Hey, wanna try that cool garlic trick?"

I laughed and thought, "Might as well!" And then fumbled around trying to figure out how to "daintily"  crush the head of garlic with the palm of my hand like Todd does.

I had Matt hold it between his thumb and forefinger, and then gave it a big ol' whack.

And Ta-Da! All of the cloves were separated.

But then the moment of truth arrived. Would tossing these in between two mixing bowls and then "shaking the dickens" out of them really peel them completely?

Hell yeah, it would.

I probably shook them a little too vigorously, since you can see that they're not perfectly smooth. But really, HOW COOL IS THAT??

No sticky fingers, the mess is completely contained, and you get to impress all of the people you're cooking for before they even put a morsel of food in their mouths!

So make something wonderfully garlicky tonight and try the trick out for yourself. Once you've mastered the garlic trick, then maybe you can move on to other cool tricks like drinking a whole beer out of a sandwich-sized plastic bag in 3 seconds. That'll really get the party started.