Potato Starch
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Peel and wash the potatoes.
Grate the potatoes into a deep dish containing 1 quart of clear water.
Stir well and pour through a fine sieve.
Settle and wash
Let it settle for 10 minutes until the water is clear.
Pour off the water and add 1 quart of fresh water.
Repeat stirring and settling until the water is clear.
Dry
Dry the fine white powder on a sheet of paper in the sun or near a fire.
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 starch granules that settle out of the grated pulp as a fine powder.
- Potato starch
- Thickens liquids by swelling and gelling when heated, so it is added in small amounts.
The step that matters
Repeating the settle and wash until the water runs clear. Starch granules settle to the bottom while soluble proteins, pulp and other particles stay suspended. Rinsing until the water is clear removes these impurities, so the dried powder is white and clean rather than grey or off-flavoured.
“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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