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 the starch
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
- Full-grown potatoes
- Provide the starch that settles out of the grated pulp as a fine white powder.
- Clear water
- Carries the starch away from the pulp, letting it settle while fibres are rinsed off.
The step that matters
Repeat stirring and settling until the water is clear. Starch that is not fully washed keeps some plant residue and colour, so the powder can taste earthy or look grey. Each fresh rinse removes more of the soluble material, so the settling must be repeated until the water runs clear.
“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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