Do you ever find your brain working overtime when there's really no need to? I had this experience today. Mum's been away this week and it's fallen to me to be the official spud peeler for the troops. I can't speak for anyone else, but I imagine most people might daydream or imagine they were in a happier place while peeling the potatoes. Personally, I was trying to work out the best, most efficient, most accurate route to peel in order to achieve a suitably rounded spud. Here are some of my findings.
1) One approach I like is to take one long strip round the "middle" of the spud. After that you have two hemispheres which can be tackled one at a time. I try to go for a spiral from the edge of the area towards the middle and award bonus points for achieving it without the peel breaking.
2) A variation on this approach is to go all the way round the middle and then continue to tackle the first hemisphere on the same move. That way you could theoretically do the whole spud in two pieces. I suppose, now that I am actually writing this down, it could be possible to start at the top of one hemisphere and spiral out and then back in the other side to achieve the utopia of potato peeling prowess - the "oner".
3) The angle of cut with the knife affects two things - width of strip and amount of potato removed with the skin. Think of the extremes - a slight shaving will barely remove the tiniest bit of skin, whereas a 90 degree attack will cut the unpeeled potato in two. I don't know which part should be discarded in the latter case. I suppose it is generally agreed that the shallower the cut, the better. This maximises the amount of potato you are left with and that is, after all, what we're all about in the potato peeling business - delivering the peeled potato to you, the consumer.
Finally, I would just like to announce that this week is in fact the first time I have "made" (that should really be "prepared") potatoes from start to finish.
5 comments:
You might want to try this in the future. Boil the potatoes for a few minutes, then put them in a bowl of ice (with water). You'll get peeled potatoes with no 'despoilation'. The skin just comes off with a mere pinch!
Wow, anonymous, that is great advice! I will use it next time I must peel potatoes. Seriously.
Also - if I was peeling potatoes I would have tried to make a game of it by trying to get all the skin off in one peel. It probably wouldn't have worked but that's what I would have done. Did you ever make those 'elephant' shapes when peeling mandarin (christmas) oranges, peeling all the skin off in one peel? Flashbacks of elementary school!
Top advice there from anonymous. However, I prefer to go for quick stripes down the length of the tattie. I'm the left with two scalps which can be taken effectively with two quik peeler flicks.
Annonymous (you mysterious person), this is an intriguing tip. I think I tried this once when making a curry. We didn't use the bowl of ice, mind you. We just tried to peel the boiled spuds. It was a bit messy. I'll consider ice in future.
Annie, I vaguely remember a game where you would peel an apple and then throw the peel over your right shoulder and then look at what shape it forms on the ground. That would be the initial of the person you're going to marry. It sounds decidedly dodgy now that I think about it, and I'm sure it resulted in many girls with "I", "J" or "L" names getting more attention than ones with "R" or "Y" initials.
Frewba, your casual use of the word "peeler" made me consider a comparison of knife vs. peeler techniques. I think if I was using a peeler (the wide kind with the blade across the way) I would be inclined to use many parallel strip-like strokes. However, with a knife I'd be more likely to go with Anne's "all-in-one" attempt.
Well, actually you might also want to boil your potatoes till they're for more than "a few minutes" (between 5 and 10 minutes). :)
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