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Excellent Potato Flour, or Arrowroot

A homemade flour made by grating potatoes, washing, sieving, drying, and sifting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Excellent Potato Flour, or Arrowroot

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the starch

  1. Grate the potatoes into a large bowl filled with cold water and stir well.

  2. After 6 hours, pour off the water and add fresh water, stirring the mixture well.

  3. Repeat this process every 3-4 hours during the day, changing the water at night.

  4. The next morning, pour off the water and add 2-3 quarts more water to the potatoes.

Wash and collect

  1. Turn the mixture into a fine sieve set over a pan to collect the flour.

  2. Wash the flour through the sieve by pouring water over it.

  3. Let it settle in the pan, then drain off the water.

Dry and store

  1. Spread the potato sediment on dishes and dry it in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Sift the dried flour and store it in bottles or jars, covering them tightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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 that is washed out and dried to become the flour.

The step that matters

Drying the potato sediment in a slow oven. Starch that is dried too quickly or at high heat can scorch or brown, and residual moisture left in the flour can encourage mould during storage. Drying slowly and fully keeps the flour pale and shelf-stable.

“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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