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Preserve

To Make Potato Starch

A method for extracting starch from potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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To Make Potato Starch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Wash the potatoes thoroughly.

  2. Grate the potatoes and wash the pulp, rinsing and straining it through a sieve.

Separate the starch

  1. Stir the pulp well and let the starch settle.

  2. Turn off the water and add new water.

  3. Repeat the stirring and settling process until the water is clear, adding a little bluing to the last batch.

Dry

  1. Collect and dry the starch.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starch, which settles out of the grated pulp as the water is changed.

The step that matters

Repeat the settling until the water runs clear. Starch granules are dense and settle out of water, while soluble proteins and fine pulp stay suspended. Each fresh-water round removes more of these impurities, so stopping early leaves a duller, less pure starch.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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