To Boil Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and peel the potatoes, placing them in cold water as you peel.
Put the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water.
Add a little coarse sea salt and cover the saucepan tightly.
Boil and dry
Boil quickly for 30 minutes.
Pour off the water immediately and set the pan aside to dry the potatoes.
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
- Starchy flesh that softens into a tender, fluffy texture when cooked in water.
The step that matters
Pour off the water immediately. Leaving potatoes in hot water after boiling lets them keep absorbing moisture and turn waterlogged. Draining at once and letting them dry lets surface moisture evaporate, so they stay fluffy rather than soggy.
“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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