I read that garlic pressed hard by the back of a knife releases oils, but then some recipes just say to chop. Are there any preferred ways or does it depend on the dish being cooked?
Smash to get the skins off, then mince. Kinda incorpates both styles.
Learning this trick felt like a revelation to me, I always hated fiddling peeling the cloves
Exactly this and for that reason. If it’s minced you always have to chop… there almost never a reason to skip one or the other. And the exceptions like spaghetti with garlic need carefully sliced garlic. Mmm so good.
Crushing with the flat of your knife also makes it super easy to peel. I always crush-peel-chop. This way you’ll also get the most garlicky taste and aromatics. Since the compound allicin, which is responsible for that spicy fragrant garlic taste, is created when the garlics flesh is torn.
I love this article from Serious Eats about different ways to chop garlic.
The summary of it is that the more cell walls you rupture, the more strong and acrid the garlic taste is. A microplate is at the far end of that spectrum, but crushing the garlic also releases this extra garlicky power.
Too much of this can be overwhelming in a dish, so there are times when finely sliced or diced but not crushed is preferable. The deciding factor seems to be how you plan to cook it; long cooking rounds out the garlic flavour so by the end, it doesn’t seem as important whether it was diced or crushed. Also, there are some instances where one might want the sharper garlic taste.
