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Comment by greglindahl | Hacker News Reader

I also found it interesting that the stuff you buy in a bottle is much tamer than making it from scratch.

My aunt from Pakistan shook her head when she saw jars of minced garlic and minced onion in our pantry. She said making those ingredients from scratch dramatically improves the flavor of Indian food.

I never understand those. How hard is it to cut up or mince your own garlic?

When I used to live in a house with 6 other people, we went through astounding quantities of minced garlic.

Peeling enough garlic for a 7 person dinner is actually quite time consuming.

>Peeling enough garlic for a 7 person dinner is actually quite time consuming.

If it takes you more than 10 seconds you're doing it wrong

https://youtu.be/0d3oc24fD-c

That requires you to have two bowls of the same size, and that's two more dishes that have to be washed.

Obviously you don't have to use bowls, an old pickle/sauce jar works too. You don't really have to wash it either, just put a drop of soap in it, bit of water, shake for 2 seconds, and rinse.

So including cleanup you're talking 20 seconds

The two bowls thing is a notorious hoax. No one has ever gotten it to work.

or stick it in a microwave for twenty seconds, it takes twice as long but you will avoid all that bruising.

Bruising? You're going to be cooking it, which will break every cell in it.

Not only is garlic not always cooked, but even when cooking, it makes a difference if you slice it vs mincing it. The more you damage it before cooking, the sharper the flavor.

Yep. They always have some weird off flavor from garlic, either from being kept for so long, or preservatives

That stuff in the jar is such crap... sliver some garlic, smash it with your knife, anything except the jar!

Trader Joes has frozen garlic cubes that are actually pretty good. I don't personally use them, but my wife does and I can't tell the difference.

I do use TJ's frozen basil cubes, which are terrific. Way better than dried, though obviously not as good as fresh. Unlike some competitors, TJ's cubes do not have added salt.

Big fan of frozen mint/basil/etc here. Pick and freeze while fresh during the summer and use all year around.

Frozen cubes? Never heard of them, but I can imagine how freshly frozen might be useful. Thanks for the good ideas! I’m going to make some myself and see how long they stay fresh... months I’d guess.

Pesto freezes well, I made a bunch of it once when my CSA delivered a ton of basil every week for months on end.

We (well my wife) grow basil in our garden. She puts gallons of pesto in the freezer all summer. Without the cheese - its so much better to grate fresh once you thaw out the basil and oil!

How does that now dry out?

Most spices lose their kick with age. They oxidize or the volatiles evaporate. This is why people will grow their own herbs.

This isn't true of all spices.

Oregano, and rosemary spring to mind as ones where dried is better - and in the case of rosemary mixing can create flavor dynamics that don't exist with one or the other.

Basil is an interesting one in that the flavor changes as it dries - they contribute different flavors depending on the state of the herb and how your using them.

Volatiles and oxidation aren't always a bad thing.

Sure. I expect water soluble flavors aren’t moving anywhere until the leaf is dry. And maybe the volatiles are the bad part of the flavor, not the good part.

    and in the case of rosemary mixing can create flavor dynamics that don't exist with one or the other.

I don’t know why this amused me. I’m imagining selling small batch single malt rosemary to hipsters. Wanna go into business?

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