See below for photo credits

But chopping or mincing garlic by hand is slow and tedious. You could always do that thing where you whack the flat side of a knife over the garlic, but that gets a bit messy. Getting the mini food processor out for such a small job is a hassle (and more to clean). That slamming food chopper thingy that you saw on TV is tough to clean too. My solution: the NexTrend Garlic Twist (Amazon, $16.99).

I use mine almost every time I cook, and it is really easy to clean. It’s plastic, and dishwasher safe, but I like to just leave it soaking in the sink for a bit, then use a soapy sponge. It’s much easier to clean than all the other garlic gadgets.

The great thing is the texture of the minced garlic after just a few twists. It’s not too coarse or too fine. And because it kind of smashes the garlic, you get better flavor out of the garlic than just chopping. It has 2 pieces (first photo) that when fitted together sort of looks like a yo-yo (second photo). To make the twisting easier, I cut larger garlic cloves in half and place each half on each side of the row of teeth.

Go ahead and start cooking (and sneak in some garlic even when it’s not in the recipe!). The more garlic the better. And don’t be ashamed to say “aaahhh” when you’re all done eating.

Top photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sackton/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Other photos by Paul Jin