How to extract the skin or peel of a citrus?
You will probably have noticed that in many recipes the citrus peel or rind is used, that is, the upper part of the skin of the fruit, which perfumes a preparation very well.
To extract the skin there are several techniques and tools available, here is a brief summary of what needs to be done and what should not be done.
Good fruits
First of all: extracting the peel from a fruit means that you will take the top and outer part of the crust, but it turns out that this is the part that receives most of the chemical treatments applied to the fruit.
Be careful, you should definitely wash the fruit very carefully before peeling it, but it is best to use an organic fruit, guarantee of the absence of treatment.
The good part of the fruit
The part of the bark that is removed is usually very thin, 1 mm or less, it is very important to extract only the part with color of the bark and especially not the white part that is underneath, this is not a shell but a great source of bitterness to avoid at all costs!
See to the right of this image a shell, and to the left rather a crust, with this famous white part.
Good tools
To remove the shell there are different tools, more or less efficient:
1) The peeler or the sharp knife: with it the fruit is “peeled” gently and small strips of peel are obtained (colored, do not forget: not white) that will then have to cut again into strips, then into very small pieces . It is not very fast, nor very efficient, but it works.
2) The zesteur knife: it is a strange shaped knife, which allows to remove the shell making small filaments. The structure of the zesteur prevents the removal of the white part, that is interesting. The negative of this utensil is that the shell thus obtained is a little “crushed”, “sweated” and therefore not so great.
3) The shell grater: It is like a cheese grater, very thin, on which the fruit is rubbed (care, it is the fruit that moves, not the grater). It is, by far, the most efficient tool, to prove it is to adopt it.