The peel is thicker and attached firmly to the root, so cutting off the root end first will save a lot of time and effort peeling garlic.
you can avoid stripping the peel into tiny sticky pieces or digging grooves into the clove while you gouge or scrape off the peel from the top or side.
this is another lifehack I would have appreciated learning years earlier.
Another good method is to get two large metal bowls face to face with the cloves inside, and shake the shit out of them like a human fire alarm.
Be warned though, this WILL terrify your cats, if you have any
Cocktail shaker works really well for this method too.
I use the plastic containers I keep from when I get Thai food delivered or any kind of Tupperware style box.
I haven't heard of this one, you shake the garlic cloves and they bump into each other and peel themselves? or does this have something to do with the specification of metal bowls?
that seems like a lot of work.
is that a lot of work?
I would imagine it's more the collisions with a hard surface, and metal bowls are simply the lightest way to do that. It's actually not a lot of work; it maybe takes 20 seconds of shaking. I like the other suggestion of using a cocktail shaker, though. That would be quieter AND easier, assuming it's equally effective
I couldn't stop thinking about the shake-peel so I just gave it a whirl.
two full bulbs pf garlic later, my first impressions of the shake-peel go like this:
I'm shocked this works at all.
lots of cloves are unpeeled after multiple shaking sessions.
deeper bowls could make a difference.
I have to clean the bowls afterward because garlic juice is coating the entire inside of the bowl.
The garlic cloves are very bruised and damaged after the shaking.
prep work of cutting off the root end and the top of the cloves makes them much more likely to be peeled by the end of the shaking.
maybe if I get better at this or I have better tools, this will save time and effort; right now it's more difficult and disrupts my chill kitchen flow with some pretty frantic shaking, but I could see it getting easier and less disruptive as I get used to it.
definitely an interesting suggestion and something I'll try to improve on, thanks for bringing it up.
One thing I forgot to mention: don't cut off the ends first. Then you won't get garlic juice everywhere :)
my success rate was really low without cutting off the ends, like 1-3 in 10 cloves peeled after multiple shakes, and i still had juice all over the bowls.
i think the impacts bruised the garlic and allicin leaked out.
without cutting the ends, do you pull apart the cloves in the beginning? or do you just toss the bulb in there and shake like crazy?
do you use deep bowls?
That's the thing I'd have to try next, find some deeper bowls
I pull the cloves apart first, discard the loose bits of skin, and then give them a shake to loosen the stuck-on skins. I've never had an issue with bruising the garlic, although the method, in my experience, also isn't 100%
got it, thanks.
have you tried it with fresh and older garlic?
I feel like the higher water content in the fresh garlic might make it easier to shake peel.
since I just bought a bag of garlic, I'll have to try this out next time and buy some fresher stuff.
I have a couple bowls, I'll have to give that a whirl tomorrow.
I was going to make a garlic dip, and that's an intriguing method of peeling garlic.
If I have a lot of garlic I’ll do that or one of those silicone tube garlic peelers, but if it’s just a few cloves it’s usually not worth the effort for me.