American restaurateur, David Chang once said, “Food, to me, is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for”. True no doubt, but cooking can at times prove to be quite cumbersome, especially if you’re short on time, and have loads of dishes to put up for that teeming crowd of guests. What’s your weak area on any given cooking day? Maybe it is peeling garlic cloves, or perhaps it’s chopping those large onions that make you cry in every possible way. Kitchen troubles are common for even the most experienced chefs. Everyone has that one task that they dread and absolutely detest.
Personally, I hate chopping onions, even though I absolute can’t resist the sweet-savoury flavour that it adds to my food. However, I have tried everything, starting from lighting candles in the kitchen to soaking the onions in a bowl of water, but those tears just don’t seem to stop. What we see here though, has nothing to do with onions. Instead, this is all about potatoes, that one vegetable that we usually do not associate with inconvenience. You always have that moment when peeling potatoes seems like a mammoth task; though physically not too taxing, it is of course time-consuming and provides no entertainment whatsoever. Imagine taking each potato, one by one, taking ages to peel the skin off, and then boil them. What I do is just drop them into a pot of water to boil first and then use my fingers to peel the skin off. Easy of course, but it is extremely messy. Potato skins get stuck inside my nails, and the poor vegetable looks like it went through a terrible storm. Thus, the method suggested here definitely appears to be a good one. It’s pretty simple—first wash the potatoes well, so as to ensure there’s no grime or dirt on them. Next, take a sharp knife and run it across the middle just deep enough to penetrate the skin, but not to cut it into half. All you need to do here is ensure that your start and end points on that peel join together. Boil them in a large pan of water. Once cooked, remove from fire, drain the hot water into another pot, and run the potatoes under cold water to cool them down. You will clearly see the area which you had marked with the knife. When they have cooled down, simply peel off the skin from one half and then do the same for the other half of the potato. Pretty easy, right?
Is there anything else that could be troublesome in the kitchen? If you’ve found a way out, do share. And for your friends, who love to spend time in the kitchen, pass it on.
