I have a confession that would make my culinary school instructor (a mildly terrifying Frenchman from Corsica whom we called "Chef X") get red in the face, shout, and pelt me with potatoes: I don't always peel my vegetables. In fact, I rarely do. Carrots? Yeah, right. Beets? Absolutely not. Potatoes? I would never! Squash? Well, depending on the variety, I don't even peel those babies, either. Not only is it much easier to skip that step, but the skin is where all the good stuff—i.e. fiber—is at.
It wasn't always like this. I attended the French Culinary Institute, where we were not only told to peel our potatoes and carrots, but we were even taught how to "turn" them, using our knives to cut off piles of scraps, shaping the veggies into miniature football-shaped torpedoes. Needless to say, vegetables didn't wind up looking much like, well, food.
But, having paid over $30,000 for culinary school, I figured the method of excessive peeling was the way, the truth, and the light. Who was I to question authority? I went on this way for years, dropping carrot peels into the compost, until I met a farmer in a small town outside of Syracuse, New York. For our first date, we cooked dinner together—pasta with a beef bolognese sauce. I took charge in the kitchen, telling him to prep the onions, celery, and carrots: "Peel them first," I said, "then chop them finely."
Who wants to peel all those carrots? Not us. Photo: Flickr/chadskeers
He looked at me like I had two heads. "Can't I just scrub them clean?" He asked, adding that he didn't actually own a vegetable peeler.
I was dumbfounded. "I guess…yeah. You could," I said, and, honestly, it was news to me. We rinsed the carrots under a stream of cold water before slicing and sautéing them in lard with the other veggies, finishing the sauce with the usual suspects: red wine, canned tomatoes, and ground beef. And you know what? It tasted every bit as great as the version I was used to making per culinary school rules.
From that moment on, I have been liberated from the tyranny of vegetable peelers (I tossed mine in a spring cleaning purge a few years ago). And, while the romance didn't last, my new kitchen intel did. You, too, can free yourself from the peeler. Here are some guidelines for boycotting peeled vegetables.
Buy Pesticide-Free Veggies
If there are no harmful chemicals on the exterior of your vegetables, there's no need to peel it off. Pesticide-free veggies just need to be scrubbed free of dirt.
Consider the Preparation
Some methods of cooking fare better than others for skin-on vegetables than others. Here's when it's okay to leave the skin on: Roasting, mashing, and, depending on the variety, grating or chopping raw. Here's when you should probably use the paring knife or peeler: Steaming (the skin can be tough if steamed), puréeing—for example, this potato recipe—and raw preparations of veggies with extra-thick skin. Which brings us to our next point…
