There are all kinds of ways to go about peeling garlic. Although, according to food experts, some methods are definitely better than others.
If you are like most people, there is a good chance you’ve been peeling garlic inefficiently your whole life and never even realized it.
However, it’s never too late to change your ways. All you aspiring home chefs out there, it’s time to listen up and take note. Today we’re going to teach you a garlic peeling hack that will blow your mind with how simple it is. After you learn this trick, you’ll likely never go back to peeling garlic the old way ever again.
However, first, we need to cover what not to do. The following are the wrong ways to peel garlic:
1. Smashing the garlic with a knife
Some chefs advocate laying the garlic clove on a cutting board, then smashing it with the flat edge of your knife. The problem is that in order to do so, you are going to have to hit the knife pretty hard with the palm of your hand. If you slip and mess up, it can easily result in cutting yourself. This method also assumes that you want your garlic crushed, which not all recipes call for.
2. Using a microwave
Other people encourage nuking your garlic cloves in the microwave for around twenty seconds before peeling. The heat makes the clove pop right out of the skin super easily. However, by microwaving the garlic even for a short amount of time, you are effectively cooking it and causing it to lose some of its flavor and pungency.
3. Peeling it the old fashioned way
This method is likely what most people do, simply because they don’t know any better. They rip the clove of garlic out from the bulb and cut off a small piece on each end of it. Then they peel away the skin from the clove by hand.
While it definitely does work, it can also be a huge pain. Using this technique often results in little pieces of skin sticking to the clove which you’ll then have to remove, piece by little piece. If the clove is short and wide instead of long and skinny, it can also be very difficult to cut off the ends of the bulb without wasting half of it.
So what is the best way to peel garlic fast and efficiently without wasting any, cutting ourselves, or losing any of the flavor? Twitter user Valentina Lord (VPestilenZ) shared the secret, and immediately after she did, her Tweet went totally viral. The video she shared of the correct way to peel garlic has since been viewed over 23 million times, and for good reason. Once you see it, you’ll understand why.
THE CORRECT WAY TO PEEL GARLIC
Take a small paring knife in your one hand, and hold the garlic bulb firmly in the other hand. Jab the tip of the knife a few millimeters into the edge of one of the cloves of garlic. Apply force against the opposite edge of the clove with your index finger.
Then simply pull the clove from the bulb and separate it from its skin by pulling back and away in one long smooth motion. It’s that easy. Rotate the bulb of garlic and repeat the process for each additional clove your recipe calls for.
In the video, the Twitter user peeled an entire bulb of ten cloves of garlic in under thirty seconds and it’s pretty amazing to watch. While we imagine it might take a little practice to get as smooth as Valentina, once you get the hang of it, we’re sure you’ll be peeling garlic like a pro in no time at all.
Check out the Tweet below to see the video of this amazing new garlic peeling technique in action.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
As someone who makes a lot of Korean food, this is the best method for getting garlic peeled!
👌 pic.twitter.com/14GGJDQhRj— 𝖛𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖆 ✣ 𝖑𝖔𝖗𝖉 🌑 (@VPestilenZ) June 17, 2019
