Peel Garlic Quickly With A Silpat

This is pretty slick - I thought.  Peeling garlic is a real pain in the butt.  There's a couple of techniques I've seen online such as shaking in two bowls or plunging in hot water.

You may have seen the silicone sleeves they sell expressly for peeling garlic.  They work really well, but I can't commit to purchasing something like that.  But then!  Then I realized I own a silicone baking mat!  Suppose you were to roll up the garlic inside it?  Would it work?

It does.

Lay some garlic cloves out on the edge and roll them up tightly.  Roll back and forth - the silicone "grips" the peel and takes it off easily.  I was pretty thrilled to discover a second use for my baking mat.

Of course, you might not own a silpat, in which case, too bad.  You ought to get one.  Save on parchment paper.

Comments

[kz1]

Does your silpat absorb any of the garlic odor? Pretty powerful stuff, that garlic! Great idea though. I usually just smash the clove with the flat side of a knife and the peeling comes off dead easy.

[matthewabel]

I usually do that, but sometimes I like the whole cloves unsquished. Depends on how fancy I feel.

[mress1]

this bakin mat method should be very handy when trying to peel lots of garlic... if only one or 2 the fduba method mentioned its def. the best

[fduba]

There's another pretty fast and easy way to peel garlic as well:

• Pick up a knife
• Cut the pointy edges off the garlic
• Lay the knife's flat surface over the garlic and apply pressure

Voilá!

[mress1]

doesnt get any simpler than that...

[wperry1]

I do kind of the same thing but I squeeze it between my thumb and index finger then roll it a bit. The peel usually comes right off.

[bajablue]

Thank you for sharing!!!!

[jessyratfink]

Genius! I'm going to need to buy some of these now that they have two uses. :D

[mr.incredible]

Alton brown would be proud. He hates single purpose kitchen tools.