What's the most efficient way for peeling potatoes by hand?

freebee@sh.itjust.works to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 231 points –

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.

Why would you ever want to peel them?

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.

I was a bartender for a bit.

It's normal for coworkers to complain about picky/annoying guests.

A coworker came up to me:

Jfc guy said he wanted a lot of lemon with his Pepsi, I gave him 3, he said he wants like a whole lemon worth of slices wtf

Me: Was he... Old?

Yeah...?

Me: kidney stones. That mans probably had a few, and he's done with em. Give him a sidecar of fresh lemon juice (something we had on hand), you'll make his day.

What does lemon do to kidney stones?

My guess is it helps dissolve them?

A quick bit of research shows that citric acid prevents kidney stones from forming, actually.

I assumed it was common knowledge but yeah, y'all. If you wanna avoid kidney stones, lemon juice is the ticket.

Yes, maybe, if you put kidney stones directly in lemon juice, but kidneys filter blood, not the content of our stomach. Maybe it makes the blood more acidic...? Not a doctor but I doubt it can be that effective

Below this comment is Harvard medical school contradicting you and saying that citric acid is effective in preventing kidney stones. Do you stand by your uneducated guess?

Lol I love that people are in here assuming I just pulled lemon juice helping kidney stones out of thin air. It is good to be skeptical, but not without doing your due diligence. Google is both user friendly and effective.

Y'all, you just got educated by a bartender. Remember that the next time you assume you're better than your waitstaff. (Not you, person I'm replying to, but the armchair naysayers).

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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

You don't need fibre.

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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

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.

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Rather peel, peel is gross. I prefer simply boiled and salted, without skin.

Yeah, except for mashed potatoes the skin stays on.

Nope, skin stays in for mashed as well. Mashed red potatoes with skins, a few lumps & loads of roasted garlic!

Worth mentioning that different types of potatoes have more and less pleasant skins to eat, so it depends

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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.

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

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

I bake with and can a lot apples -- an apple peeler is the fastest way to peel, core, and slice an apple.

It just comes down to having the space and "need" to justify buying one.

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

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...

Well it works with less effort. That's one good way of peeling them

"most efficient" depends on what you're maximizing for

Speed?

Effort?

Potato wastage?

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.

Alt: Picture of a peeler, with a blade that has teeth

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

100% I've also find myself not really peeling potatoes much any more. I guess optimising for time and nutrition lol

to me what consumes time in the many scrapes method is the skin of the previous peeling stroke sort of being stuck in the peeler. Before continuing, needing to free the peeler again. I avoid it in the 1 long peel approach.

Steel wool and a water bucket or running water

To go further... bucket full of potatos, stick a scrubbing brush on the end of a drill, then drill that water till all the peel flies off.

Sounds mental but I swear I saw a YT video of this once

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.

I also have the same WMF peeler. It's really nice.

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

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.

Same for peeling apples. One long continuous peel is so satisfying.

I have an apple peeler/slicer/corer that does that. I use it to quickly peel and slice apples in bulk for apple pie.

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.

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.

This is the most efficient way to peel potatoes

by hand

I peel potatos by hand by buying dehydrated instant potatos.

getting harder to find that with just dehydrated potato and nothing else. Most contain additives. Anyhow, it's not the same as a nicely peeled, boiled potato.

Mostly just joking about how their "by hand" was using a power drill and a brush.

I don't disagree but I pretty much like any form of potato, real or fake, fried or baked, with skin or without; it's all delicious.

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.

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.

Don’t. That is a thin skinned potato.

Pic isn't mine. First search engine result of a potato with my favorite kind of peeler. I buy the same thin skinned potatoes tho :)

If you can understand the accent, this is the best way to peel potato's,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drVqGhjI558

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.

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.

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. 🤨

Down votes? Apparently some do not appreciate your humor. I laughed.