Cut Garlic for Split Pea Soup

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Stephanie Barnett here on behalf of Expert Village. I am going to show you today how to make some fabulous Split Pea Soup. This is a head of garlic. Never ever use an entire head of garlic in your soup unless it is called for. I've had people call me up and say oh, should I put the garlic in. It comes in that big thing; I put the whole thing in. Too much garlic. Your garlic can separate. It's got a papery skin and it separates out what is called cloves. Now look see that green shoot, that means that clove is starting to sprout. Let's not use that one. So we are going to put the rest of this garlic in so that is really about 4 cloves of garlic which is perfect for this recipe. So first you are going to take a clove of garlic and take the edge of your knife and mash it, push down on the garlic. That makes it much easier to take off the papery skin and there is a little bit, it almost looks like plastic but it's not. There is a really thin papery skin under that harder papery skin. You are going to cut the end off which is really a tough piece and not nice to chew on and then you are going to slice the garlic in little rectangles. You are going to keep that all together and move it as a group so you have a little unit there and then you are going to chop that into little pieces. The finer your garlic is the more potent it can be. You are going to do this with all your pieces of garlic. "