Cooking Potatoes

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Published 2014

About

Some potato recipes are simple, but many are complex and use a combination of cooking methods. For example, to make potato croquettes, you must first boil or steam the potatoes, purée them and combine the purée with other ingredients, shape them, bread them, and, finally, deep-fry them.

Cooking methods are essentially the same as the methods for vegetables discussed in the previous chapter. If necessary, review these methods before proceeding with the following recipes.

Starchy Vegetables and Salt

Many references advise that potatoes and other starchy vegetables should be cooked without salt because the salt makes the vegetables firmer and thus delays cooking. Food scientists, however, say that the cooking water for starchy vegetables should not be salted for exactly the opposite reason. As explained in the Salted Water sidebar, salt speeds the softening of plant cell walls because the sodium of salt replaces calcium in the plant fiber. Calcium helps to hold the plant fiber intact, and replacing it with sodium makes the fiber break down more quickly. Thus, when potatoes are cooked in salted water, the exterior portions can break down and begin to fall apart in the cooking water before the interior is cooked to doneness.

Potatoes may be cooked with salt when it would be difficult or impossible to season the dish after cooking. In the case of dishes like Hungarian Potatoes, for example, mixing in salt after cooking would break up the potatoes. Gratin Dauphinoise must not be stirred after cooking and so is salted before cooking. Also, in preparations like roasted potatoes, a salty crust on the potatoes may be desirable, so salting before cooking can be done.