To Boil Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash and peel the potatoes, then wash them again.
Place the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt for every 2 lbs of potatoes.
Boil and steam
Boil the potatoes until tender but not fully cooked.
Drain the water and cover the potatoes with a clean, loosely crumpled cloth.
Place the lid on the saucepan and let them steam by the fire until fully cooked.
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
- Their starch softens as they cook, giving the flesh a tender, fluffy texture.
The step that matters
Boil only until tender but not fully cooked. Potatoes absorb water and can turn waterlogged or break apart if boiled all the way through. Finishing them by gentle steaming completes the cooking with less water uptake.
“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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