Garlic

I am trying to brown thick chicken cutlets in olive oil and garlic. I don't want to burn the garlic. When and how should I add the garlic for the best flavor? A thick chicken cutlet may be just one side of the chicken breast, trimmed and shaped, or the breast piece may have been sliced horizontally into two. I would first saute the garlic cloves, sliced lengthwise, in the olive oil until they are lightly browned, then remove them before adding the chicken cutlets, seasoned with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Q.Would you settle an argument? Several of us take garlic pills in conjunction with prescription medicine. We hope it will lower our cholesterol and our blood pressure. One opinionated fellow says we might as well toss the pills out because only fresh garlic works. I hate garlic, but don't mind taking the pills. My 82-year-old neighbor has lowered her blood pressure to 132 / 72 in three months with garlic pills. That fellow still insists that only fresh garlic is useful. Do we pitch the pills and gag on the garlic?

Garlic, highly promoted as a natural way to reduce cholesterol, does not do so, Stanford University researchers reported yesterday. Whether ingested raw, aged or as an extract, the popular supplement had no effect on cholesterol levels in people with moderately high levels, according to the report in the Archives of Internal Medicine. "It just doesn't work," said Christopher Gardner, a Stanford professor of medicine who led the study. "If garlic was going to work, in one form or another, then it would have worked in our study.

Item: Prego Pasta Bake Sauce What you get: Enough to make an 8-serving casserole Cost: About $4 Nutritional content: Three Cheese Marinara sauce -- 100 calories, 4.5 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 650 milligrams sodium, 11 grams carbohydrate, 9 grams sugars Preparation time: 40 minutes in oven Review: In an unscientific survey I conducted, all the men I know who had tried this product absolutely loved it. The women, on the other hand, weren't so...

THE OTHER night, as I peeled the skin off a garlic clove and chopped the skinned garlic to bits, I wondered if there might be an easier way to perform this routine task. Searching for an expert way to mince garlic, I flipped through a handful of new cookbooks and found a handful of answers. Julia Child told me to drop the cloves into boiling water to loosen their skin. Jacques Pepin told me to crush the clove with the side of a knife before, not after, I chop it. Daniel Boulud told me to remove the germ, or center of the clove, to keep the garlic flavor from running roughshod over a recipe.

Q: Garlic and shallots have a bit of green in the middle. Should this be used?A: The small bit of green in the middle is the beginning of a shoot. This will not have the flavor intensity of the more mature bulb, but certainly is edible.Q: How do you determine when pasta is cooked to al dente?A: According to Marcella Hazan, author of "The Essentials of Italian Cooking," pasta is cooked when it just stops snapping as you bite it. Al dente is an Italian phrase meaning "to the tooth." Pasta should be cooked until it is tender, but still firm.

Item: Mrs. Paul's Meal in Minutes What you get: About 2 1/2 servings Cost: About $6 Nutritional content (1 1/2 cup serving): 180 calories; 1 gram fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 550 milligrams sodium Preparation time: 5 to 8 minutes microwave, 12 to 16 minutes stove top Review: Mrs. Paul's has two new meal kits: Shrimp Linguine and a similar shrimp stir-fry. We tried the linguine, which included vegetables and a scampi seasoning. On a positive note: The linguine defrosted easily and held its shape well.

What prolific writer Anonymous has called garlic "the ketchup of intellectuals."Does that mean only more intelligent people like it? Or that eating it guarantees more time alone for deep thinking?Whatever, Americans must be getting smarter or lonelier, because the aromatic bulb of the lily family has become a popular appetizer.Many restaurants roast the whole head, then slice it open before serving. Diners dig out the butter-soft cloves to spread on crusty bread, with perhaps a little butter or olive oil.Chef Salvador Valenciana cooks garlic heads in chicken broth instead of roasting them.

I have to backtrack a little. Several weeks ago I suggested using olive oil as a spread for bread instead of butter (high in saturated fat) or margarine (high in trans-fatty acids), because it's a healthier kind of fat.I'll stand by that recommendation, but with some caveats.One is to limit the quantity you use, because eating too much fat of any kind increases the likelihood of unnecessary weight gain, as well as increasing your risks for some kinds of cancer.The second is to be very careful if you're inclined to prefer garlic in your oil. Several years ago the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Ugh! That was my first reaction to the news coming out of a meeting of cancer scientists in Baltimore that eating garlic, broccoli sprouts and fermented cabbage could be good for you. Several lifestyle questions about this diet also quickly came to mind. One was how could anybody get within 5 feet of you if you regularly ate that stuff? It would take at least a week's worth of mints to knock out the lingering sauerkraut breath. And what about garlic's way of, how shall we say this, "revisiting" you later in the evening?