There it is again, a recipe instruction telling me to “slip skin off” after I’ve boiled my beets. I hate that. I also hate it when I’m supposed to slip the skins off tomatoes or peaches I’ve dunked, successively, in boiling water and ice water. Or when I’ve blackened the skins on sweet red peppers.
Maybe it’s just me, since those instructions are commonplace, but skins do not slip off my fruits and vegetables, thank you. My fruits and vegetables are quite attached to their skins—or maybe it’s the other way around.
In any case, whenever there’s an instruction in a recipe to slip skins off anything, I invariably wind up spending at least a half hour at the sink with a paring knife and stained hands as I try to coax, cut or pry off the supposedly slippery skins. The only exception that comes to mind was a lone sweet potato that I over-baked some time ago that readily shed its skin when prodded.
If somebody can tell me what I’m doing wrong, I’d like to know, because I have a bunch of beets begging to boiled and, yes, skinned. Should I just give it up and peel the darned things? What am I doing wrong?!
Diane // Jul 2, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I have never had any trouble slipping the skin off beets if you boil them until done with salt (I just pickled mine from our RPFA). Also, you can freeze tomatoes (once we get them). Take out the core and put in plastic bag. Then when you want to use them in cooking just run under hot water and the skin slips right off. Diane
zp // Jul 3, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Ha! I too hate recipes that blithely advise me to “slip the skin off” tomatoes, beets, whatever. I believe produce is extremely variable and I am always improvising skin removal if I do it at all.
But you know what else bothers me? People who assume that their reader has never encountered an oil and vinegar potato salad (see above) . . .
Janet Majure // Jul 3, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Oh, now, zp. I hope you’ll forgive me a little bit of hyperbole. I might note, though, that I didn’t assume readers hadn’t experienced a vinegar-and-oil potato salad. I was referring to the unusual (in my experience) mustardy, garlicky and roasted potato combination of this particular potato salad. In any event, it’s a great salad, and thanks for reading and commenting.