Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Choose potatoes of similar size for even cooking.
Scrub the potatoes well and peel them thinly in clean water.
Boil
Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt and simmer gently until tender, about 30 minutes.
Check doneness with a skewer; they should be firm but cooked through.
Drain and dry
Drain the potatoes and let them stand by the fire to dry.
Alternatives
Alternatively, steam the potatoes in a steamer until tender.
For new potatoes, scrape them and cook in boiling water.
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 softens into a tender, fluffy interior when cooked through in water.
- Salt
- Seasons the potatoes as they cook in the water.
The step that matters
Simmer gently until tender. Gentle simmering cooks the potato interior evenly without breaking the outside apart. Boiling hard can split the skins and leave the centre undercooked, so checking with a skewer confirms they are cooked through.
“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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