What's the most efficient way for peeling potatoes by hand?
What's the most efficient way for peeling potatoes by hand?
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.
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.
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.
Bucket of water with potatoes and a drill with a toilet brush for a drill bit.
It depends on what exactly you're looking for in "efficiency'.
When most people peel potatoes they're looking for a time efficiency.
In the one strip method there's a lot of turning the potato going on. And a lot of careful precision. If you've been doing the one strip for enough time you might be close to the million strokes peeling being time effective but for most people...
To be honest I don't really peel potatoes anymore The only dish I would peel them for would be scalloped.
From experience in Restaurants: boil them first and usually you can peel them then by hand. Like ripping the skin of in two parts with each hand.
I kinda don't see the point of peeling that kind of potato. I get them entirely because of the thin skin and would just the bigger thicker skinned ones if I minded the skin.
I've sometimes just scrubbed off the skin with some steel wool like stuff though.
You can heat them, then rapidly cool them in cold water and the Peel will slip right off.
Might not be the most energy efficient way.
The Willi Waller 2006.
If you can understand the accent, this is the best way to peel potato's,
If efficiency is the goal, spiral is good. If speed is the goal, rapid cuts are best. If both speed and efficiency are the goal, go mechanized.
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.
Man I love potato skin
If I peel potato skins, I usually keep them to make a vegetable stock.
I rest one side of the potato on a cutting board and then work my way around it with a peeler (from top to bottom). Afterwards I do the edges separately. Takes about 15-20 seconds per potato.
If I need to peel a potato, I go around the flat sides in a single motion and then 3 or 4 peels on each flat side to take the rest off. Mostly just keep the skin on.
I use a weed eater. Aka a string trimmer. It mostly just saws the potatoes in half unless I keep it moving. That’s what makes it efficient. The only inefficient part is meticulously placing thousands of potatoes on the floor with their non-peeled side facing up. I use my Spot robot for that, in the second garage. Spot lets me know when it’s time for another mass peeling.
I’d let Spot just carve the potatoes himself with a little paring knife but we all know where that goes. 🤨
Don't
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