For the sweet smell of garlicky success...

There's nothing as delicious as a home-cooked Italian meal complete with pasta, fresh tomato sauce and garlic bread. Except maybe a pungent Thai stirfry with snow peas, red chilies, holy basil and garlic. Or perhaps a fiery Indian curry with cumin, coriander, cayenne, and garlic. You get the idea--garlic is good. And it's been hailed as a health tonic by traditional healers for centuries, now with the backing of modern medical research.

Unfortunately, peeling the cloves of garlic required to give those dishes their zing is the sort of culinary chore that can be tiresome for even an experienced cook. And the same is true for crushing and mincing garlic.

But it doesn't have to be that way: here are some simple instructions which should help any amateur chef overcome their fear of garlic--unless, of course, they're a vampire.

Before you begin

You should remove all of your garlic cloves from the head before starting. Crushing garlic is recommended if you want a stronger garlic flavor--this releases more of the pungent flavor and natural juices of garlic. Marinades and foods such as Caesar salad and shrimp scampi demand crushed garlic.

Garlic chopped into slices or larger pieces will usually add a light flavor to your dish. It's less likely to dissolve or soften, so you won't get as strong a garlic flavor as you will with crushed garlic.

A happy medium could be mincing garlic which is less pungent than crushed garlic, but still adds great flavor for recipes that require stir-frying or sauteeing.

Since minced garlic is very finely chopped into small cubical pieces, it will dissolve more easily when cooking. In stir-fry dishes especially, minced garlic adds a great deal of flavor to the cooking oil used in the frying pan.