Why are garlic presses so out of fashion? | Kitchen aide

. UK edition

Crushed garlic in a chrome press.
Sometimes, a press can helpful, especially if the garlic is going in a sauce, stew or braise. Photograph: JoeGough/Getty Images/iStockphoto

It’s the gadget people love to hate – but maybe it does have a place in the kitchen?

Why are garlic presses suddenly a no-no? Recipes now stipulate grating instead, but who wants lumps of garlic in their dinner?
Sally, by email
People sure do love to hate on the garlic press, not that that’s anything new: in her aptly titled essay Garlic Presses Are Utterly Useless, Elizabeth David called them “both ridiculous and pathetic”, while Anthony Bourdain wrote in Kitchen Confidential: “I don’t know what that junk is that squeezes out the ends of those things, but it ain’t garlic.” Fighting talk, indeed.

Christina Soteriou, recipe writer at Ottolenghi Inc and author of Big Veg Energy, however, takes a more balanced approach: “A garlic press is not necessarily a no-no, and there can definitely be a time and a place for it,” she says. “It’s definitely quicker [than chopping], but I’d use it only when said garlic is going into a sauce, stew or braise.” Which is to say, in a dish where those lumps that concern Sally will cook down and dissolve almost entirely.

For Jenny Chandler, author of The Capsule Kitchen, meanwhile, there’s no “abhorrence and disgust at the idea of anybody using a garlic press, it just seems to add extra work to your cooking”. First, you’ve got to fumble around in a drawer to find it, then “half the garlic just squeezes up around the sides of the press, so I’ve got to do it twice to get all the garlic out”. That’s especially irksome given that Chandler is more often than not crushing multiple cloves. “So, in the time it takes me to locate my press and load it with, say, four cloves, I could have just crushed them with a bit of salt on a board under a heavy blade,” she says. And you’ll sure need extra time for cleaning the damned thing, Chandler adds: “That’s an absolute pain.”

Soteriou usually minces her garlic with flaky sea salt “for the absolute best garlic flavour”, otherwise she “almost always” uses a Microplane grater or pestle and mortar. “The flavour is more consistent and mellow,” she explains. “Without getting too science-y, a pestle gently breaks down the garlic cells and releases a rounder, more even flavour, whereas a garlic press gives a slightly more bitter and uneven flavour because of how the cells are sharply broken down.” A Microplane falls somewhere between the two, and of course doing that by hand can be a sticky business. “People think a garlic press stops you from getting garlicky fingertips,” Chandler says, but there’s another solution: “When I worked on a boat many years ago, the owner gave me a bar of stainless-steel soap, which turned out to be miraculous at getting rid of garlic smells.” The sulphur compounds in garlic bind to the metal molecules and wash away under water, and the same works if you brush those garlicky digits against a stainless-steel sink.

As with most things in life, Sally should just do her, though Soteriou does suggest sticking to one rule: “A garlic press for anything that’s going to be slow-cooked, and a Microplane, pestle and mortar, or minced for anything where it will be raw or cooked very quickly.” Just “never, ever buy ready-crushed garlic”, Chandler says. “That’s another business altogether and it tastes awful.”