Peeling Garlic

Minding my own business, making barley soup

I'm flabbergasted. I'm amazed. I'm completely transfixed by my garlic in this plastic container.

Have you seen this? Do you have any idea what I'm referring to? Maybe not. Let me very quickly explain.

Right there, in that picture, I peeled garlic by simply chopping off the ends, tossing all the cloves into a plastic container and then I shook the heck out of it for about 30 seconds or so. Then, I opened it up and...

Shut the front door! Look at that garlic? Just don't look at that greenish one, eww..

something magical had happened! All the cloves were cleanly peeled and my fingernails didn't reek of garlic. Not that I, personally, mind reeking of garlic but I think the people in my yoga class are starting to notice.

Why would anyone even attempt this? I'm sure there are many reasons, but I found mine on twitter by the author of one of my favorite cooking related books- cooking for geeks. I thought it was a joke, the whole 'just shake' technique, but I've used it a few times and it works every time. It does seem to work better with more cloves, I had to shake a bit more for two cloves the other night, but I'm pretty pleased. I wonder what else this would work on...

I just had to share.

Enjoy!
-m

EDIT: Here's a video! I think it might work best with multiple cloves? Hm?

How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.