Potatoes

Potatoes are extremely cheap and nutritious so it’s useful to know how to cook them.  Broadly speaking there are three types:  Floury, Waxy and General Purpose.

Floury potatoes are great for mashing, roasting and chips and waxy potatoes are best for steaming, boiling, in stews and for salads, where you want the potato to still have some “bite” to it once cooked and not break down in a mushy sludge.  You can also buy general purpose potatoes.  These are a bit of a compromise.  As the name suggests, you can pretty much use them for everything.  They won’t necessarily give you the fluffiest mash or the best potato salad, however if you have a limited budget or limited storage space, they are the next best thing.

It’s important to choose the right type of potato for the dish you are cooking:  A floury potato won’t hold together when boiled and will not make a good salad. Similarly, a waxy potato will produce a gluey mash.

Growing up we always had a sack full of very muddy potatoes that occupied a dark corner of our laundry.  I usually had the unenviable job of endlessly scrubbing the mud off and peeling them.  Nowadays, if you buy potatoes from the supermarket, the potatoes are pretty much mud-free.  I also rarely peel potatoes now.  Aside from the fact I am pretty lazy, experts say that most of the nutrients are just under the skin, so it is better to leave it intact.  You do obviously have to peel them for mashed potatoes and I do make an exception if I am roasting larger potatoes to go with roast meat.

Storage

Store potatoes in a cool dark place – but not the fridge – ideally in a heavy paper bag or cardboard box.  If potatoes are exposed to light they can develop a greenish colour.  This comes from chlorophyll being formed in the surface layers.  A toxic alkaloid is associated with this, so green potatoes should not be eaten.

Cooking

Potatoes are extremely versatile.  They can be mashed, boiled, roasted, crushed, steamed, baked in their jackets, and made into chips and wedges.