Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Select potatoes of nearly equal size and wash them well in cold water.
Pare them very thinly to retain the best part of the potato.
Boil
Place the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil.
Add the salt, cover the saucepan, and boil rapidly until the surfaces of the potatoes begin to crack.
Drain the water completely.
Leave the potatoes dry in the saucepan.
Steam and serve
Re-cover and place the saucepan on the side of the fire, turning occasionally to prevent sticking.
Cook in their own steam until easily pierced with a skewer.
Remove the cover.
Briefly place the saucepan over the fire to dry off any moisture.
Carefully transfer the potatoes to a serving dish to keep them whole.
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 starchy body of the dish, which softens and turns fluffy as it cooks through.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the potatoes as they boil in the cooking water.
The step that matters
Drain and dry the potatoes thoroughly. Leftover surface water turns to steam and makes the skins loose and the potatoes waterlogged. Drying the pan briefly over the fire lets surface moisture evaporate, so the potatoes stay whole and firm.
“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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