How To Peel Garlic The Easy Way

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How To Peel Garlic

Want to know how to peel garlic the easy way?

Garlic is a fundamental ingredient in many of my recipes and I have to say that before I was given this tip I really used to hate preparing it.

Before we go any further, let's be clear on terminology. When you buy garlic in the shops it appears almost spherical and this sphere is what we call the bulb. We then break into the bulb to pull out the individual segments (the pinky purple area in this photo below) and it's these segments that we call cloves.

Here's a garlic bulb broken into to show the cloves

Apologies if that last bit was obvious but many years ago I gave a recipe to friend of mine that included a clove of garlic, he put in the whole bulb! What was worse was that he ate the meal and his breath stank for days!

Peeling garlic isn’t easy, the shell of the clove doesn’t come away without a significant amount of scraping, usually with my fingernails and I usually end up getting chunks stuck in my nails and my fingers stink of garlic for what seems like forever.

So what’s the secret to avoiding this?

Simple……Take a large vegetable knife, top and tail the garlic clove and then place the knife horizontally on top of the clove.

How to peel garlic

Now with a gentle fist, bang down on the knife so that the garlic is slightly crushed and now peel the clove. See what I mean? With a bit of practice I find this to be quick and easy.

Special thanks to Robert Nickerson, Quartzsite, AZ for this next tip how to peel garlic, he clearly disagrees with me (and that's fine) because he has a different way of doing it:-

"Many have tried the gently mash it method, often mashing to much or wasting some of the garlic essence. Try this, separate the Garlic as you normally would. Place the cloves in the Microwave for 15 seconds. The skins will quickly rub off!"

Well when someone writes in with a tip like that you've just got to try it don't you? It works!

I blasted a clove for 15 seconds (don't do any more time than this) and the skin softened, I then broke the tip and gave it a squeeze from the other end and out popped and slightly warm but perfectly formed clove of garlic. Nice one Robert!