Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and scrub the potatoes well.
Peel them if desired.
Soak the potatoes in cold water for 1 hour.
Boil
Place the potatoes in a kettle and cover with boiling water.
After 15 minutes of boiling, add 1 tablespoon of salt for every 8 potatoes.
Boil the potatoes moderately for about 35 minutes until tender.
Serve
Pour off all the water and set the kettle on the back of the stove with the cover half off to let steam escape.
Serve very hot.
If keeping them warm, cover the kettle with a folded towel.
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 that cooks through to a soft, tender texture when boiled.
- Salt
- Seasons the potatoes as they cook in the boiling water.
The step that matters
Boil the potatoes moderately until tender. Boiling too hard can break the potatoes apart and make them waterlogged, while too gentle a simmer cooks them unevenly. A steady, moderate boil cooks the centers through without splitting the skins.
“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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