Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the potatoes thoroughly and leave them unpeeled.
Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water to about 1 inch high.
Sprinkle the potatoes with coarse sea salt and cover with a wet cloth.
Boil and serve
Bring the saucepan to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Drain the potatoes and return them to the empty saucepan, covering with a wet cloth to keep warm.
Check the cooking progress by adding a little cold water if needed, cooking for 18 to 20 minutes after boiling starts.
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
- Provide the starchy body of the dish, which softens as they cook through simmering.
- Cold water
- Covers the potatoes so they cook evenly in the simmering liquid.
The step that matters
Bring the saucepan to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer. Boiling too hard can break the potatoes apart and make the outsides ragged before the centers are tender. A gentle simmer cooks them evenly through to the middle.
“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.