“In spite of being rejected, Sharifa has returned continuously to ask for Belqisa. It was not seen as rudeness; on the contrary, it indicated the seriousness of the proposal. Tradition says the mother of a suitor must wear out the soles of her shoes until they are as thin as garlic skin.”
Asne Sierstad, The Bookseller of Kabul, Little Brown, 2003
If only all garlic skins were as paper thin as the soles of Sharifa’s shoes. Unlike the garlic in Afghanistan, what we find here, at least in winter, are giant bulbs with hefty cloves in thick skins so impervious that the unwary cook could easily break a fingernail trying to peel them.
Here’s what to do instead: Remove the outer skins from the bulb and separate the cloves. Place a single clove on a cutting board and press down with the heel of your hand until you feel the skin split. If you are peeling a lot of garlic, you may prefer to place the flat side of your chef’s knife over the clove and again press down hard until the wrapper splits. Or simply smack the clove with flat side of the blade. Whichever method you choose, the garlic peels easily.
The indefatigable testers at Cook’s Illustrated recently tried out several gadgets for peeling garlic. The most alarming was the Chef’n Garlic Peeler, which, at least as pictured, resembles a device one might have encountered in a dungeon during the Spanish Inquisition; it was said to slash the clove “spewing out mutilated (but unpeeled) garlic.” Cook’s favors the E-Z Rol: you slip a clove into a rubber tube and roll on a hard surface; the clove slips out naked and the skin stays in the tube.
The E-Z Rol is a good choice for equipment-lovers with roomy kitchen drawers, or for squeamish cooks who don’t want their hands to smell like garlic. (We think that’s missing all the fun.) Still, we recently peeled 40 cloves in 10 minutes just by whacking the garlic with the side of a heavy knife—and didn’t have to store another gadget.
Editor’s note: For more information on garlic peelers, see Cook’s Illustrated, Number 79, April, 2006, “Equipment Corner,” Garth Clingingsmith, p. 32. Find the Zak Designs E-Z Rol Garlic Peeler ($7.99) and The Book Seller of Kabul at www.amazon.com. Wiilliams-Sonoma sells the E-Z Rol for $9.99 at its stores and on the web, www.williamssonoma.com.