Soaking potatoes

[frenchguycooking]

I always cover pealed potatoes with water if I am not going to be cooking them right away. It keeps them from turning brown and helps wash off some of the starch.

Oh, and welcome to DC.

+1 I do exactly the same. Welcome to DC.

 

[CarolPa]

Soaking potatoes is a good move if you're going to fry them, to remove the surface starch. (BTW I don't know why this is good but I know for sure that it's good.) also, you should fry them twice, for sure, but again I'm not sure why: read Julia Child. If you cut your potatoes in advance you can keep them from browning by keeping tham under water.

When I make mashed potatoes I usually just boil them unskinned, or perhaps just bake them. I never remove the skin--I like the rustic look, feel and taste.

Well anything else would amount to me telling ppl how to make mashed potatoes... Or be sure to read Julia Child on making fried potato pillows. You understand pillows you pretty much have mastered fried potatoes.

As far as mashed, just bake or boil them then let them sit unpeeled and they won't brown.

We like to leave the skins on potatoes when we mash them, as long as we can get new potatoes. Sometimes the skins are so dirty looking, even scrubbing them doesn't make them clean enough for my liking.

 

[CarolPa]

There are certain types of potatoes (waxy) that become gluey when beaten with cold milk and butter using an electric mixer. There are times when I have seen potatoes so gluey that I would rather eat Elmer's Glue. It is the adding of the cold milk to the hot potatoes and then mixing them with the electric mixer vigorously that causes the glueyness. It is a chemical reaction. This is why so many recipes for mashed potatoes recommend adding warm milk.

That's why I don't have a problem. I always put a hunk of butter in the milk and heat it up in the microwave. I do it because I don't want the cold milk and butter to cool down the potatoes. Didn't know it made them gluey. DH likes them gluey. Is anyone surprised? LOL

 

[CarolPa]

I never heard of potato pillows so I googled it and here is a link in case anyone else didn't know what they were. You have to scan down a bit to get to the recipe. They recommend 3 or 4 potato puffs per person....they don't know my husband! He could eat the whole recipe.

The Good Cook: Throw Pillows and Magic Potato Pillows

 

[Andy M.]

I never heard of potato pillows so I googled it and here is a link in case anyone else didn't know what they were. You have to scan down a bit to get to the recipe. They recommend 3 or 4 potato puffs per person....they don't know my husband! He could eat the whole recipe.

The Good Cook: Throw Pillows and Magic Potato Pillows

I've seen Jacques Pépin make these. He didn't bother to cut the potatoes into rectangles. The potatoes are full of air and are really like thick potato chips. Not very filling.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

I never heard of potato pillows so I googled it and here is a link in case anyone else didn't know what they were. You have to scan down a bit to get to the recipe. They recommend 3 or 4 potato puffs per person....they don't know my husband! He could eat the whole recipe.

The Good Cook: Throw Pillows and Magic Potato Pillows

Read Julia Child. She is a goddess!

I learned all I know about this subject from her books, I forget which one. Maybe it was The Art of French Cooking...

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

I've seen Jacques Pépin make these. He didn't bother to cut the potatoes into rectangles. The potatoes are full of air and are really like thick potato chips. Not very filling.

I don't even skin them. I just slice them thin, skins on, then double fry them.