Boiling Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and boil
Wash the potatoes and leave the skins on.
Place the potatoes in a kettle and fill it with cold water.
Add a handful of coarse sea salt.
Bring the water to a boil.
Add a little cold water to the kettle to check the boiling, repeating this two or three times.
Finish
When the potatoes are nearly cooked, pour off all the water.
Place the kettle back on the fire until the steam evaporates.
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
- Starch cooks into a tender interior, while the intact skin holds the potato together during boiling.
The step that matters
Adding cold water to check the boil. Adding a little cold water briefly lowers the water's temperature, calming a rolling boil. A gentler simmer cooks the potatoes more evenly and reduces the chance of skins splitting and centres breaking apart.
“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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