Yesterday I went to a cooking class at our local Whole Foods store, presented by a Provencal chef. He said three things regarding peeling vegetables that were new to me. I wonder if anyone else has ever heard these:
1) He always peels mushrooms before cooking. I have never thought of doing this, but it was actually pretty easy, and it makes sense, as he said that it removes the outer part that is often dirty, so there’s no need to try to wash off the dirt.
2) He never uses unpeeled potatoes. I had always heard that the skin had nutrients, but he said this was not so, and if you don’t peel the potato you can often miss spots under the skin that should be cut away.
3) He does NOT peel garlic before cooking with it. (Not sure why about that.) But he does cut the clove in half and cuts away a bit toward the top on the inside, where the sprout would grow out, if there were one. He claims this part of the garlic is bad for digestion.
I posted a few pictures I took at the class here, including one showing how he prepared the garlic.
I have heard that the garlic sprout is bitter, and that is why some people remove it. Never heard about the digestion thing though. I usually do remove it, myself.
What kind of mushrooms were they, Roz? They look like regular button mushrooms. I don't remember ever hearing of this.
I know the French think potatoes should always be peeled. This spring in Provence, I saw a couple at a nearby table carefully (and with an expression of deep distaste) removing the skin of little boiled potatoes before eating them. I remember being surprised that they had been served that way.
As for the garlic, I will almost always leave the skin on if I'm making stock or something else where I will be fishing the garlic out before serving the dish. Just laziness on my part. Did the garlic skin end up in the dish when it was served?
I've read several recommendations that the little kernel in the garlic be removed, but I think they all said it was because it was bitter, not that it was bad for the digestion.
On potatoes, I have heard that you always want to peel them if they are not grown organically. The pesticide residue will be highest in the skins. I thought the skins were nutritious and found this web site that agrees: World's Healthiest Foods They say:
quote:
The potato skin is a concentrated source of dietary fiber, so to get the most nutritional value from this vegetable, don't peel it and consume both the flesh and the skin. Just scrub the potato under cold running water right before cooking and then remove any deep eyes or bruises with a paring knife. If you must peel it, do so carefully with a vegetable peeler, only removing a thin layer of the skin and therefore retaining the nutrients that lie just below the skin.
Never peel mushrooms but don't wash them either b/c they absorb the moisture; I brush them off but the peeling idea has merit b/c sometimes they can be pretty dirty.
I peel potatoes except when I'm roasting them or baking them, I like the skin on those, so I just give them a good scrub.
I always remove that little tough part at the end of the garlic and any sprout that may have formed when I'm chopping. When I throw whole cloves into a dish (e.g., a sauce or gravy), I don't bother.
The mushrooms were just regular white mushrooms. I was surprised how easy it was to peel off the skin. You just start right under the cap toward the stem, and peel it back. It came right off in strips.
Re the potatoes: He said he doesn't always use organic vegetables but he always buys organic potatoes or other vegetables that grow underground because he feels they pick up more chemicals, etc. from the soil. But he peels the organic potatoes -- as Chris said, it must be a French thing. He made some reference to affecting the liver -- the French always talk about the liver! Re the nutrients: I guess if all the skin gives you is fiber, you can get that elsewhere in your diet. But I like the skin too!
The dish was very good, and quite simple and easy. The store did not have any real cooking facilities (not even a sink, let alone a stove; the class was just in a conference room). So he did everything with three electric skillets.
He did throw the skin with the garlic into the dish, but I didn't actually see any garlic skin when he served it. Maybe it just disintegrated, or at least fell off, in the pan. I did eat one of the garlic cloves after cooking and it was quite mild; very little strong garlic taste. Mike didn't complain about my breath when I got home, so I guess it didn't have strong after-effects!
In italian cuisine garlic is often left in its coating, not cut in two pieces but lightly cracked, so that only the papery casing cracks but the clove stays whole and untouched. This is done to keep the dish taste less garlicky, which is a flavor that most Italian prfer to heavily garlicky dishes. Cutting the clove in two pieces makes it silly to leave the casing on, since the garlic juices will still leave the clove making the dish too garlicky for Italian tastes. Actually, even when the garlic is peeled, it's not usually cut: the cutting of the garlic occurs mainly in italian-American cuisine, that are far more garlicky tham the Italian one, and in a few specific Italian dishes that require it as an exception (like Milanese mundeghilli).
As for potatoes, the basic reason for peeling them resides in the green layer that is to be found under the skin of old potatoes. This green layer, as well as the shots, is rich in some alkaloids (mainly solanine) that make the potatoes toxic. Actually, some historians connected the increased number of madness cases occurred during famines since XVI and XVII century and the arrival of potatoes and tomatoes in European fields: the peasants would eat the leaves, stalks, and green parts and become intoxicated by the solanine. Yet, if there is no green layer under the peel, there is no reason why a potato should be peeled, even though most continental European cuisines use them only peeled.
As for mushrooms, the third way between peeling and washing, and the one favorited by Italian cooks, is to wipe them with a slightly wet rag. Peeling removes too much of the precious mushroom and leaves the inner, absorbent part free to soak up on liquids and fats, while wasking makes the lower part of the hat soggy.
As for potatoes, the basic reason for peeling them resides in the green layer that is to be found under the skin of old potatoes.
I spent many summers in my youth on a potato farm (god help me) . . . I presume my parents just needed a break from me so they shipped me off to my aunt and uncle's farm. Solaine build up is caused by exposure to light. Potatoes which have been hilled poorly will have a build up of solaine, also potatoes which are stored incorrectly. Solaine most commonly caused intestinal problems - cramps, gas, and in extreme cases - bleeding.
Enjoy your breakfast has browns folks!
I rarely peel potatoes - even when I'm mashing them. If I do peel them it is just a narrow strip around the centre of baby potatoes for appearance . . .
Peeling mushrooms - I never do it.
Peeling garlic is something I always do (actually, Paul often does it for me). I know that as a North American I enjoy a far stronger garlic flavour than Italians (when will we break that stereotype!) so I like all the flavour I can get.
Jerry
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. ~G.K. Chesterton
One thing to consider is that most italians (I don't kinow about the French) don't usually use new potatoes. For most of the uses we have for potatoes, older ones are better.
Very Interesting Roz....I'll give you my spin. I have never peeled a mushroom...I don't even know how! I only peel older potatoes, because I love the skins...yum! As far as garlic goes...I always peel the outer skin off.
My husband likes to tell the story about the family living in poverty where the father ate the skin and gave the potato to the children. While the farmer thought he was giving the nutrition to his children, he was actually getting the most nutritious part himself.
Is there a nutrition expert out there who can help us out here?
Charity
Posts: 1486 | Location: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: 11 May 2003
I'm having a hard time with the idea of significant pesticides on potatoes. They grow underground, so if the ground is soaked with pesticides, as it would have to be to leave anything significant, you shouldn't be eating those potatoes, anyway. The pesticides I know about are used on the leaves of the plant.
Patate novelle are prized where I live and are selling at a premium price. We eat them lots of ways but don't make gnocchi, for example, of them. Umbrians are potato lovers.
I don't peel mushrooms unless I am making something for which traditionally a mushroom is carved-- that's so far been haute cuisine French dishes. It's obviously not done because there's something wrong with the peel, because it's partly left on to make a design. Rarely I will wash mushrooms that have a lot of soil, but mostly I cut the bottom of the stem off and use a mushroom brush. It's tedious occasionally if preparing chanterelles which grow wild and have lots of folds, but so is peeling lots of anything to me.
I ate some of those green garlic sprouts because I'd heard they were bitter. They weren't. That thing will,I believe, become a garlic scape eventually, and that's showing up in more food all the time.
Every Italian recipe I read tells you how to cook the garlic. I've only two recipes in which the garlic is browned, but many in which is is left unpeeled (in camicia) or squashed, or minced, or sliced.
(I knew someone in NY who ate 8 potato skins when nervously preparing a meal for her in-laws and had to be treated for intestinal blockage! She was lucky her husband was a doctor, because she could have really suffered even more. I've been a bit more particular about those luscious baked skins since then.)
Charity, while the peel of most fruits are quite rich in nutrients, the peels of potatoes (especially old potatoes and/or with green shade) may even be poisonous. As a matter of facts, solanine tends to accumulate in the peel, in shots, and in the potatoes that have been exposed to the light. Modern varieites of potatoes have a rather low solanine content, but the more ancient types were pretty rich in solanine, which can accumulate in body tissues and causes hallucinations, bearthing difficulties and may even cause death.
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