Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash, scrub, and peel the potatoes.
Place them in cold water.
Boil
Drop the potatoes into boiling salted water.
Cook until a fork can pierce them, about 30 minutes.
Drain all the water.
Finish
Place the potatoes uncovered on the back of the stove.
Shake gently to make them mealy and allow steam to escape.
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
- Starch provides the main body, and cooking softens it into a tender, fluffy texture.
The step that matters
Shaking the drained potatoes until mealy. Gentle shaking roughs up the surface of the cooked potatoes and lets steam escape, so they dry out and turn fluffy instead of wet and gummy.
“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.
More boiled potatoes recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 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.