Boiling potatoes

Not a very sexy subject, but still many of us boil quite a few potatoes, but I haven't found much tips on how to do it the "right way".

My two favorite methods are steaming and boiling potatoes in a pressure cooker. Steaming potatoes in a pressure cooker gives a very nice texture, but not that much flavor.

Boiling potatoes in just enough water in a pressure cooker is my favorite method because it's easy to infuse flavors with for example garlic, bay leaf, pepper corns and salt.

How do you boil your potatoes? What flavors do you infuse? Do you let them steam after they are done to get a dry crust? What are the pros and cons with boiling potatoes with/without peels?

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Comments

trev_teich

It all depends on what you are trying to make. Are you talking about puree?

Tim_Roth_78505

I haven't done any work with boiling, but I've tried some pre-treatments of sweet potatoes at sub-boiling temps - namely 60 and 70 degrees Celsius. What's interesting here is that the textural effects are very dramatic, with the 60 C sweet potatoes having a very stiff texture and the 70 C potatoes being somewhat mushier than the control potatoes (not treated prior to cooking). My current theory is that it's all related to pectin methylesterase activity, and there's a paper that talks about this and two other enzymes in sweet potatoes that are potentially of interest: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijfs.12437/abstract

Sadly, I didn't prepare the potatoes such that I retained the water that escaped in the bag when circulating - which is I think why the sweetness and flavor of my treated sweet potatoes was diminished relative to the control. But the cool thing with the blanching step is that you should be able to retain the texture of a potato or sweet potato even after boiling if you pre-treat. I had a roommate that tried to slow-cook pork with potatoes and complained about his potatoes dissolving by the time the pork reached a good texture, so the blanch treatment is one way to help prevent this.

If you want a puree or something NOT stiff, you can possibly stimulate amylase activities while heat-killing pectin methylesterases and similar enzymes that can "stiffen" the potato, so there might be some cool uses for pre-blanches there as well. The graphs from the paper show how this can work for sweet potatoes, but I'm not sure whether the same rules apply for normal potatoes. Adjusting the calcium in your water either for the blanch or the boil could also have an effect on texture, although I don't know any numbers off-hand.

Nicky_J_17040

I've done fingerlings tossed with some olive oil, salt, fresh herbs, and a little bit of garlic in a water bath at 85 C i believe. It takes a good 1 1/2-2 hrs.

But the texture made it worth it.

I guess it depends on the application, but leaving the skin on definitely prevents water-logging.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

+1 on the fingerlings, @NickyJ

nasv

I have followed the method from Thomas Keller's books and have liked the outcome. Essentially you cover your potatoes with just barely enough cold water, season with salt, and add a "sachet" (leek, garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns, whatever you want wrapped in cheese cloth). Bring to a simmer, simmer for 10 minutes, drain and dress. Enjoy warm or cold.

Mira_63004

I too use the PC for boiling/steaming potatoes. Usually for mashed potates. I keep skin on for both red skin, and regular during cooking. When mashing the red, I keep the skin on. For the regular, I find, it quickly peels after the PC, and saves time on pre-peeling. Not to mention, it holds the potatoe together, in case you slightly overcook.

I never really pre-flavor. I do use labneh or sourcream instead of butter for the mashed.

Also, a adding parsley, garlic and olive oil is a simple way to dress them up.

rasmus.haglund

Thank you for your comments.

I mostly think about boiling potatoes for serving them whole, or before cutting them and roasting them in the oven.

Manfred_18311

If you want

to serve them as whole, just clean the skin well and place each on a pile of

sea salt on a a baking tray in the oven at 120 ° C. I can’t give you an exact time here as it

depends strongly on the size of the potatoes. Just stich those with a knife to

check if cooked/ baked sufficiently.

There are some

*** cooks here applying and recommend this procedure for Potato puree mise en

place. For puree…, just cut the potatoes in half place them as said in the oven

and then carve out the soft center for further processing.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I'll just mumble that that is also apart from the mash how you get the best riced as well as the best dehydrated taters for

really good meatballs...

Johan_Edstrom_5586

This would be the tater I'm the most religious about boiling really slowly - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_potato