Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes
Place the potatoes in cold water and bring to a boil.
After 20 minutes, add ½ cup of cold water to stop the boiling.
Heat the potatoes again until a fork can easily pierce them.
Finish and peel
Pour off the water and add a little salt.
Set the uncovered pot on the stove for 1 minute.
Using a towel, hold each potato and peel off the skin.
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
- Their starch softens with heat, giving the cooked flesh a tender, fluffy texture.
The step that matters
Adding the cold water after 20 minutes. The cold water drops the temperature and pauses the boil, so the potatoes cook more gently and are less likely to break apart while the centers finish softening.
“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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