Excellent Potato Flour, or Arrow-root
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the starch
Grate six pounds of sound mealy potatoes into a large vessel full of cold water, and stir them well together.
After six hours, pour off the water and add fresh water, stirring the mixture well.
Repeat this process every three or four hours during the day.
Change the water at night, and the next morning pour it off.
Add two or three quarts more water to the potatoes.
Separate and dry
Turn the mixture directly into a hair-sieve set over a pan to receive the flour.
Wash the flour through the sieve by pouring water over it.
Let the flour settle in the pan.
Drain off the water.
Spread the potato sediment on dishes.
Dry it in a slow oven.
Sift the dried flour.
Put it into bottles or jars, and cork or cover them closely.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Mealy potatoes
- Supply the starch granules that settle out as the flour once washed and separated from the pulp.
The step that matters
Drying in a slow oven. Starch left damp can sour, clump or spoil in storage, so the sediment must be dried fully before sifting and sealing in jars.
“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.
You might also like
Deep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipes
Orange Potato Bread80 recipes
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.