High Speed Garlic Peeling


How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.

Via BoingBoing.

ETA: We finally tried this, using a sealed Tupperware container instead of the two bowls. It actually works!!! But these are the catches: 1) It doesn’t work as fast on the skinny, inner cloves as it does on the fat ones. You can get those peeled too, but you have to keep shaking. 2) You have to rinse the cloves after shaking because they end up with little bits of skin all over them. Even so, it is still a remarkably easy way to peel a whole head of garlic.

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14 Comments

  1. What a neat trick! I love these sorts of things, even though they never seem to work as easily for me as for the well-practiced person in the video. On the other hand, what’s the downside? Unpeeled cloves of garlic all over the kitchen floor? A minor setback and the cats will bat them under the fridge in no time anyway.
    Now I need to find a good garlicky recipe for dinner tonight.

  2. I love Saveur…we’ve been taking it for years because it is such a quality rag. I wonder if that method works for just one clove of garlic?

    But what a cool trick- thanks for posting it!

  3. After seeing it on BB yesterday I tried it last night – put the garlic in a tupperware with a lid and shook it like a polaroid picture – it works. Matching metal bowls not necessary!

  4. Oh… my goodness. It couldn’t be much easier. I am so trying this next time I have to peel garlic. I’ve started using more garlic powder just because it’s such a PITA to get the cloves peeled, and I don’t even bother with the little ones. I don’t have two matching bowls, though, but I’ll make that a priority methinks.

  5. Peeling garlic:
    I whacked the head of garlic twice with the heel of my hand and hurt my hand and barely moved the separate cloves. Whacked it twice more with a huge wooden spoon. That separated the cloves, finally. Then, they were all over the counter, floor, and in a plate of ripening tomatoes. I used a Tupperware canister to shake the 13 cloves. Six shakes later:
    first-2 peeled
    second-1
    third-3
    fourth-2
    fifth-1
    sixth-2

    There was one clove left that had very loose skin. I took it off easily.I think that accounts for all 13 cloves. No, one is unaccounted for…hmmmm

    This was much more amusing than peeling the cloves, even with the hurting of my hand and gathering of the pieces of paper and cloves from all over. My puny smashing and shaking power is probably to blame, plus this was my first time. And his hand is bigger than mine.

    Making hummus will be less tedious!

    I will post pictures on my blog someday.

  6. Finally tried it last night, it did work, fast and easy and neater than the usual, which seems to always leave bits of garlic skin stuck to everything.

    I did use metal mixing bowls, wonder if that’s why I didn’t wind up with skins stuck to the cloves?

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