How to Chop Garlic
There are a number of interesting devices for chopping or mincing garlic. This is the old fashioned way, which works just fine.
First, find a nice, tight, fresh and healthy-looking bulb of garlic at your store or farmers market.
If you're just using one or two cloves, pull them off the bulb. If you're going to us a lot of garlic, separate the cloves from one another by turning the bulb upside down and applying pressure to the bottom of it with the heel of your hand. The cloves should come apart easily.
Place one garlic clove on a cutting board. You can bang it with a pot or pan or a kitchen mallet to loosen the skin. Some cooks use the flattened blade of a large knife or even the end of the handle. (Be sure not to cut yourself.) The skin should come off easily.
Cut off the hard tip and throw it away.
Slice the garlic lengthwise first. If you have the right kind of knife, you can achieve this most easily by rocking the blade towards its tip rather than actually lifting the knife all the way off the board. Make several lengthwise slices, being sure to keep the fingertips of the hand not holding the knife curled under to avoid cutting them by accident.
Now slice the slices crosswise.
If you're not accustomed to chopping garlic, you may be surprised by how sticky it is. You can diminish stickiness one of two ways. First, you could run your fingertips under water. Either that, or, if your recipe calls for salt, try sprinkling a little on the garlic as you're working with it. Yes, it will diminish stickiness.
As you chop, keep pushing the garlic pieces back towards one another, because they're likely to spread out, and then they're harder to chop.