Peeling garlic can be time-consuming and tedious. A few simple tricks will help you to quickly and easily remove toes from their shells.
Trick #1 for peeling garlic: Crush the clove
Garlic refines almost every recipe. These tricks make cooking with the spicy tuber even more fun.
The first trick is simple, but still very useful.
Mash a clove with an object such as a wide knife or spatula.
The shell can now be easily removed.
The advantage of this method is that you hardly have to touch the toe. This will make your hands smell less.
Note, however, that this method crushes the toe quite severely. If you need whole cloves for your recipe, the other methods can help.
Trick #2: The jar trick
For the second trick you need something that you are guaranteed to have at home: a screw-top jar.
It is best to put several cloves or a whole bulb in a screw-top jar. Now screw the lid on.
Shake the jar vigorously for about half a minute. The glass should then look like the picture in the middle.
Throw the peel that has already come off in the organic waste or dispose of it on the compost.
Shake the jar vigorously again and discard the detached peel.
If the skin hasn’t come off all the toes yet, you can easily peel them off now.
For this trick to work, you should
shake really long and hard.
use a jar with a hard lid. (So the tuber has enough resistance when shaken.)
make a vertical shaking motion.
This method is particularly suitable for peeling several cloves or a whole tuber at once. If you don’t need all the cloves right away, you can pickle the garlic. Alternatively, you can use it to make a delicious garlic oil or garlic paste.
Trick #3: Soak garlic before peeling
The last trick you have to prepare a few hours in advance.
Soak the toes in water for about 2-3 hours.
The peel is now soaked and can be easily removed from the toe.
For this trick to work, the garlic needs to be soaked long enough. To check whether the shell is soft enough, you can take out a clove in between. Now test whether it can be peeled easily. If not, you can just let them soak in the water longer.
Have fun trying!
