Like, I get comments from people telling me it’s weird I always try to peel potatoes like I am trying to make the worlds longest 1-piece potato peel. To me it feels way for efficient and fun to continu down a potato in 1 peel, while circling around it, instead of randomly scraping a hundred different pieces of peel off and having to reintroduce the cutter knife to the potato for every piece.
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The most effecient way is to NOT peel potatoes. Why would you ever want to peel them? Potato skin is yum and rich in nutrients, whereas the flesh is mostly carbs. By throwing away the skin, you’re not only wasting nutrients, you’re getting rid of the texture and fiber it adds.
I used to eat the skins until my kidney stone went to the lab. No more skins or spinach for me. :-( Kidney stone pain is an amazingly-effective incentive for dietary change.
Spinach causes kidney stones? Ru roh
Not necessarily, it’s specific to one’s body chemistry.
Some recipes seek the smoothest consistency. Skin interferes.
If you aren’t cooking that specifically, just wash the skin.
Do you mean there’s something other than roasted and mashed?
Oh… How could I forget gnocchi?! That wondrous improvement on pasta
Mash with skin, hmmmmm.
It’s delicious.
Given that the skin has up to 12 times the nutrients of the entire potato it covers I personally stopped peeling my potatoes in most situations. It also adds a great crispy texture when you’re roasting or frying. With that said, you do you when peeling. If it’s cathartic to peel it all in one piece go for it. Or you can cut the potato in half and simply use a knife to trim the skin off like a sweet potato.
That’s not true. For a potato, about half the total fiber is found in the skin. No other nutrients are drastically reduced.
Source
Rather peel, peel is gross. I prefer simply boiled and salted, without skin.
Yeah, except for mashed potatoes the skin stays on.
You should NOT do this with Potatoes. Their skin contains Solanine, which is a nightshade toxin.
Other veggies and fruits yes, but not potatoes. Other nightshades like Tomatoes and Pepper are way different.
Fresh or properly stored non “green” potatoes should be safe to eat with the skin, as the solanine content is usually below the threshold of 100mg per kg, as I understand it according to this Source. What I found interesting is that the Solanine apparently accumulates in frying oil (it starts breaking down at about 170°C according to Wikipedia) which might be troublesome since some places swap frying oil infrequently.
Interesting!
Worth mentioning that different types of potatoes have more and less pleasant skins to eat, so it depends
Should be worth noting that the skin of potatoes contains toxins.
Not if you remove eyes, sprouts and green parts. What you want to avoid is green flesh. If you scratch under the skin and its green pitch it.
The toxins exist throughout the skin, but in smaller concentration than in the sprouts and green parts. Doesn’t mean that the skin is inherently unsafe to eat, but you probably should peel it if you eat potatoes regulary, or if you’re cooking for children, old people or someone immunocompromised.
Toxins exist in the water you drink and the air you breathe, unless you distill the water to the point of actually being dangerous to consume.
A small concentration of toxins is absolutely unavoidable. The presence in potato skins is pretty negligible.
They are in such small concentrations that your body tends to eliminate them. They do not accumulate.
You do you, I’m just going by the recommendation of my local health advisor.
Does he enter the room and say “Hi everybody”?
I think cooking goes a long way to dealing with the toxins, also. Raw potatoes are very toxic.
No, alcaloids are stable under heat, that’s why you should also discard the water when cooking potatoes with skin.
you seem knowledgeable about potatoes. Is it okay to let the water cool down and water outside plants with it?
I don’t know, but if you let it sit on your stove for a few days you can develop a really impressive stink!
try it after you boiled it together with some brocolli
Not that I ever reused the potato cooking water, but TIL. Thank you.
Hey OP, I haven’t read through the entire thread yet but I have a couple of suggestions. Fancy cocktails are a hobby of mine and a high quality peeler is essential for pulling thin, delicate strands of citrus zest for garnishes. The OXO Good Grips Y Peeler is a fairly popular one. With the added benefit of being able to replace the blades when they go dull. They also make a swivel peeler (the one in your picture) if you prefer that. My personal favorite is the Viski y peeler.
There’s also channel knives, they’re made to specifically cut continuous long, thin strips of citrus zest so you may find those pretty fun to use on your potatoes. With a little practice, you could probably peel an entire potato without stopping once. Like peelers you have a couple of options. The Triangle knives are good. You would use them in a similar way to Y-peelers. I’m not sure what the form factor for these are called but they’re used in a similar way to the peeler in your picture.
Lastly, if you’d like a very quick (efficient) way of peeling them, you could always use an apple peeler. I can guarantee those will peel anything quicker than you could do by hand. And they’re kinda fun to play with too
And a tip: pull the potato, not the peeler. Use your had with the peeler as leverage, but keep it still and use your hand with the potato to move it through the blade.
this is the quality dedicated response i’m looking for haha.
I’ve considered before getting something like the apple peeler, but my girlfriend was like no it’s just a gimmick we don’t really need it, it will just clutter up the kitchen or get forgotten about in a closet. Guess I know what I want for christmas!
Lol everyone’s got their thing! I’ve wanted an apple peeler for a while too but I don’t have much use for it. If you want something smaller and af a lower price point I really think you’d enjoy a channel knife. Once you get good with them you’ll be peeling entire potatoes in one shot
Boy, Oxo has has a terrible website. Decline their tracking and it gets stuck “Processing request” while blocking the whole page. Accept and it’s immediately usable.
Sorry! Had no idea. I have a network dns filter and adblocker on my browser and didn’t have an issue. For what it’s worth, target carries OXO brand stuff and there’s plenty of sites that sell their brand as well
The Y peelers or as they were called in the kitchen I worked in “the lady’s shaver” are great because you can cut on the back and forward motion.
Carrots, potatoes, cucumber all peeled superfast by peeling back and forth instead of only one direction.
Yeah once you get into a rhythm with the Y peeler you’ll be flying through produce in no time
“most efficient” depends on what you’re maximizing for
Speed?
Effort?
Potato wastage?
Yes.
Balance of all three?
Then define the balance. How many seconds of efficiency is worth sacrificing 1 gram of edible potato?
How the heck do you end up peeling off 1g of edible potato?
Bucket of water with potatoes and a drill with a toilet brush for a drill bit.
https://youtu.be/WaUoIS10dvA?si=I8U2LRj3Np0AvBPs
That is some Tim the tool man Taylor stuff!
I wanted to shit on it but I’m actually quite impressed…
What the fuck kind of toilets are they cleaning in Denmark?
Well it works with less effort. That’s one good way of peeling them
Well this isn’t what I expected to see today bit Im goddamn glad I did.
I don’t think hands are good at peeling potatoes. Maybe if you sharpen your nails?
The skin flakes off really easily if you cook them first. No nails needed
I would agree that the tool you use has the most impact. I really like this one. For me it works way better than the one in your picture.
We have one of those. It’s called “Sparschäler” over here in Germany. I have no idea how to translate it but maybe “a thing that peels and saves as much of the veggie in the process” or savingspeeler?? Whatever, my point is: those little teeth are something else! I got them stuck in the skin of my fingers/hand so often, I got another one without the teeth. The one without teeth isn’t as effective (especially when I peel carrots) and cuts more off the vegetables I peel. Feels smoother, though!
true, it impacts the technical options. When my last one broke, I looked for quite a long time to find exactly one like in my picture again. The head needs to jiggle about to follow the shape of the potato while peeling. Static peelers feel very weird to me.
The one in the photo jiggles too.
I have a few of these in my drawer, I only use this style as the Y-type are awful IMO. I like the whittling motion and not the scraping motion, it feels natural. All other styles are a gimmick.
I just took a look. All have floating blades and my current favourite is probably the “Kuraidori” from Home Hardware. Lots of blade, not much guard, solid stiff single piece handle and thick blade. Blade is marked “Solingen Duo-Cut Germany”.
I farm, grow a lot of potatoes in my garden and they are a staple of my family’s diet. I just go ham on the potato with that style of peeler, must be only a couple seconds per potato. I definitely overcut sometimes but as potatoes are nearly worthless to me compared to the peeling time, NBD.
Another hot potato tip, I always pressure cook them if not baking or roasting. It turns out reliable results super fast and uses very little water.
I use a lathe to peel potatoes
What setting for the RPM?
I want to know more about the peeler in the photo. I’ve never seen anything like that.
German Amazon has it. It is not particularly special o’er 'ere.
In terms of ergonomics, I much prefer this one, though.
Listen to me, you will not use that old wiry thing anymore once you have an oxo peeler. They have a rubberized grip that’s actually hand-sized and I’ve been loving potato peeling with it.
Oxo makes some good stuff. I offer see their products on America’s Test Kitchen at the very least in the running and as winners a decent amount of the time
It’s called “Sparschäler”.
This is the most efficient way to peel potatoes
AND damage your car.
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by hand
Wow, it is almost like magic. 🤔
You can buy a set of cleaning brushes as drill attachments, a real time saver for hard scrubbing or anything
No argument there. Was just the first video on the list
Victorinox makes a very nice peeler
The one with the serrated edges? I don’t like it, it’s a bitch to clean, even though it saves x amount of cutoff… I much prefer the type linked by op, I have an even more ergonomic one from wmf that I love
Yea that’s the one I have and love it. I just chuck in it the dishwasher. Probably not great on it but it’s over 2 years old and cuts like new. Pretty sure them make a non serated one.
Steel wool and a water bucket or running water
The Willi Waller 2006.
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I couldn’t understand a thing - was that Canadian?
I don’t normally peel my potatoes, but when I do, I use the peeler like I’m whittling a piece of wood.
But peeling oranges…I do the same thing you try to do with potatoes: I try to get the peel off in one single long spiraling piece.
I’m in your camp on all 3 points
Boil them with the skin on and use the back of a small knife to easily remove the skin after. This is how we’d make mashed potatoes where I once worked.