Boiled and Steamed Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the old potatoes well in cold water and scrub them clean.
If the potatoes are diseased, peel them and cut out any eyes or black specks, but it's better to boil them in their skins.
Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover them with cold water.
Sprinkle with salt.
Boil and steam
Bring the saucepan to a boil and cook the potatoes for 20 to 30 minutes.
Check if the potatoes are tender by inserting a fork into them.
Drain the water and cover the potatoes with a clean cloth in the saucepan.
Let the potatoes steam with the lid on until dry.
Serve
Carefully peel and serve in a hot dish.
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
- Old potatoes
- Starchy flesh that turns fluffy and absorbs salt well when boiled.
- New potatoes
- Waxy flesh that holds its shape and stays firm after boiling.
The step that matters
Checking doneness with a fork. Potatoes that are undercooked stay hard in the centre, while overcooked ones break apart and turn watery. A fork should slide in with little resistance, which signals that the starch has gelatinised through the whole potato.
“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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