I love cooking with garlic, and loathe peeling it. Not only is it time consuming but it leaves your hands reeking. And while I don’t consider the odor of garlic to be unpleasant, I am told that those who do not indulge in the Blessed Bulb find it noxious.
Then one day I tuned into NPR and heard a way to peel garlic that sounded preposterous. I had missed the first part of the report and was pretty sure that there was something missing in what I heard, but when I got home I tried the part I had heard, just to be sure.
It goes like this: take a bulb of garlic, give it a karate chop to break it up, then place the cloves in a bowl (the broadcast says a metal bowl, but I have used ceramic and plastic and they work fine). Then place another bowl on top of the first and shake vigorously for a minute or so. Separate the bowls and voila! There, amid the shed paper-like skins, you will find lovely naked bulbs of garlic, ready for chopping.
I know, it sounds impossible, and I am not sure what happens, scientifically, but it works.
And your life will never be the same.
I’ve used both metal and plastic bowls for this. I find that with metal bowls, I don’t even have to karate chop the cloves first.
Awesome. http://www.saveur.com/article/video/video-How-to-Peel-a-Head-of-Garlic-in-Less-Than-10-Seconds?cmpid=fb