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Nina’s Tips & Techniques Summer Salad Series: Peaches

How come I can get the pit out sometimes and other times it’s stuck?

Pit problems. There are two reasons the pit gets stuck:
1. The peach is not ripe enough. Peaches don’t “release” the pit until they are perfectly ripe, and trying to force a peach apart when it is under-ripe usually leads to a broken, smashed peach. Some people enjoy their fruit this way and that’s fine, but you will want to either cut the peach flesh off the pit or eat it like an apple.
2. Maybe you cut into the fruit the wrong way. Think of the peach like a globe. The stem is the North Pole and the dent that runs down the side is the International Date Line. If you cut the peach on the equator your pit will get stuck. The pit will also probably get stuck if you try to cut along any random longitude. Always cut down the International Date Line and around the other side—pole to pole, if you will, for the pit to pop out perfectly.

I really dislike peach skin. How do you peel a peach?

There are many ways to skin that peach—isn’t that the old saying? The old-school way is to blanch the peaches in boiling water for just a few seconds, and then shock them in cold water and the skins peel off. The new-school version is to use a soft skin peeler – a peeler with a serrated blade. If the peach is very ripe the skin sometimes just peels off with some gentle help from a paring knife and your fingers—this is not a foolproof method!

Get the recipe: Peaches and Tomatoes with Burrata and Basil