Cooking potatoes is not a special art. Except for one detail…
Boiled potatoes are a popular accompaniment to meat, stir-fried dishes and vegetables. Just scrape them, put them in water, salt them and they are ready in twenty minutes taken care of. According to experts, the quality of food is determined by its correct processing. And in the case of potatoes, the water you cook them in plays a key role. How is that?
Cold water is better
Before we break down the problem, we have a question for you: “How do you boil potatoes – do you put them in cold or hot water? According to the portal’s chef Tyler Florence the second option is the right one… “The reason is the preservation of vitamins,” says the expert on explaining that tubers contain a lot of nutrients and important minerals such as iron, magnesium, manganese or vitamins B1, B5, B6, A, C, E and K.
The starch is gone
“If vegetables are put in cold water, their boiling time is extended by a few minutes. And the longer they are on the stove, the faster they lose valuable substances,” explains the expert. According to him, for the same reason, you should not leave pre-prepared potatoes in water for late heat treatment. The liquid “pulls out the starch” from them, so they could also be watery after cooking, with a disintegrating structure.
Dip just for fries
Dipping potatoes only makes sense with one exception, and that’s French fries or American potatoes. “However, it must be a short soak of around 10-20 minutes. During this time, the excess starch will wash away and the potato pieces will become crispier after frying,” says chef Florence, adding that he would not recommend a longer soak, as the fried (or baked) tubers would also lose the minimum nutrients that remained in them.
Magic with carrots
If you want to preserve as many nutrients as possible when cooking potatoes, add a piece of carrot to them,” advises chef Florence and continues: “It’s not that the tubers ‘catch the color,’ but the main reason is that the carrots help store the vitamin C in the potatoes.” Therefore, the next time you cook a potato side dish, don’t forget this detail.
What about “potato water”?
As we have already indicated, potatoes contain a lot of nutrients that are released by cooking. A lot of it washes right into the water in which it is cooked. Therefore, never pour this liquid, but use it as a nutritious base for soups or sauces. If you have not salted the water, you can use it (of course after it has cooled down) as a natural fertilizer for flowers.
