What We Tried
My friend Jeffrey and I tested three different peelers. The chef’n Palm Peeler ($4.99 - this is kind of like a ring that is also a peeler, but with no diamond), the OXO Y Peeler ($7.99 - a peeler that is shaped like a Y, hence the name) and the Pirhana Peeler from Kuhn Rikon ($7.00 - claims to not only peel your typical veggies, but also tomatoes, which we did not test).
To make things fair we each peeled a carrot, a cucumber, a potato and a zucchini (I bought the zucchinis from two adorable little girls that were standing at the corner of 19th and Eureka in San Francisco selling veggies that were grown in Healdsburg, CA. Is this the new lemonade stand? They even asked me if I wanted to be on their email newsletter list, which I immediately signed up for. How can you say no to spam from a 7 year old.)
What We Made:
We actually made two dishes.
The first was a fried zucchini dish that was really really tasty. We peeled three medium zucchini and then cut them in half. Using the OXO peeler, this is the best peeler for this recipe, we sliced long and thin strips and covered them in a mixture of flour, granulated garlic (dried), cayenne pepper and freshly ground black pepper (for 1 cup of flour about 1 tbsp of each dried herb). Really coat the slices well and fry up in olive oil. Drain on a paper towel, salt and drizzle with some fresh lemon juice.
We used up the potatoes, carrots and cucumbers that we peeled to make a Mediterranean like salad. Peel three potatoes, three carrots and three cucumbers. Chop each into ½ inch pieces. Cook the potatoes and steam the carrots and let cool. Mix ¾ cup of Greek strained yogurt (I use the Fage brand), with 1 tsp fresh dill, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp of honey, 1 clove of minced fresh garlic, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and the juice of 1 lemon. Shake it well and pour it over the veggies. Mix, chill and serve.
What They Rated:
The chef’n palm peeler’s design is definitely interesting and once you get over the novelty of wearing a peeler as a ring it can be quite handy on the typical veggies that you find yourself peeling (e.g., carrots). Jeffrey complained that the peeled bits don’t fall off of the vegetables, you actually have to stop what you are doing and remove the peeled piece yourself.
OXO has this handy grip thing going on with all of its products, which make them so ergonomically correct and easy to use. This product was no exception and was really easy to navigate when we peeled the zucchini for the one of the dishes that we made. I really liked this product, but am still a little bit of a traditionalist when it comes to peelers.
The Pirhana Peeler’s serrated blades and the traditional shape of this peeler make peeling a breeze. While Jeffrey loved the OXO I was a huge fan of the Pirhana. It just felt right. My only complaint is that it was not as easy to peel the zucchini slices that we needed for the fried zucchini.
Comments