Potato mystery

[heidih]

2 minutes ago, Bernie said:

Apparently storing potatoes with whole garlic will cause both to sprout.

Who knew?

 

Yes! - not a good plan. Seen it

[Porthos]

I've had that problem just boiling russets.  If they're old sometimes they just don't want to soften up.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Bernie said:

Apparently storing potatoes with whole garlic will cause both to sprout.

Who knew?

 

As I recall Joy of Cooking sixty years ago.

 

[andiesenji]

14 hours ago, gfweb said:

Acid stabilizes pectin, so the tomato, if acidic enough can give a hard potato.  I've messed around with adding vinegar to diced potatoes, they stay hard-ish after boiling.

That's an old "country" trick for cooking potatoes for potato salad, especially if cooking large amounts.

 

[Smithy]

36 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

That's an old "country" trick for cooking potatoes for potato salad, especially if cooking large amounts.

 

 

Which way does one do it: soak potatoes in vinegar, then boil; boil potatoes in water that's had vinegar added? If the latter (as I suspect) what are typical ratios of vinegar to water?

[heidih]

23 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

Which way does one do it: soak potatoes in vinegar, then boil; boil potatoes in water that's had vinegar added? If the latter (as I suspect) what are typical ratios of vinegar to water?

 

It is the way Kenji does it. https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/07/classic-potato-salad-recipe.html

[gfweb]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

 

Which way does one do it: soak potatoes in vinegar, then boil; boil potatoes in water that's had vinegar added? If the latter (as I suspect) what are typical ratios of vinegar to water?

 

I've put a few tbsp vinegar in the cooking water

[lemniscate]

As the kid of a potato farmer, I am going in my memory way-back machine, and my hypothesis is the potatoes were not harvested correctly.  We used to kill the vines 2-4 weeks before harvest to force the sugars in the spuds to convert to starch.  It also hardened the skin to protect from blight and make the potatoes easier to store and handle after harvest.

 

It's possible that these potatoes were harvested too soon so there was low starch, high sugar and high acid.    

 

Certain varieties of potato need the set time in the ground more than others.   We grew Sebago and Kennebec from PEI seed potato stock and they definitely need ground cure time, if I recall correctly.   

Edited May 3, 2020 by lemniscate (log)

[chromedome]

17 hours ago, MokaPot said:

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate the input.

 

@heidih, I store my potatoes in the refrigerator. I had a really bad experience / experiment during school days, trying to sprout a potato with toothpicks and a jar of water. The smell was indescribably bad; hard to believe the smell was coming from a non-meat source. But maybe I'll try storing the potatoes on the counter. Correct, hard potatoes are not a consistent issue.

 

 

1 hour ago, lemniscate said:

As the kid of a potato farmer, I am going in my memory way-back machine, and my hypothesis is the potatoes were not harvested correctly.  We used to kill the vines 2-4 weeks before harvest to force the sugars in the spuds to convert to starch.  It also hardened the skin to protect from blight and make the potatoes easier to store and handle after harvest.

 

It's possible that these potatoes were harvested too soon so there was low starch, high sugar and high acid.    

 

Certain varieties of potato need the set time in the ground more than others.   We grew Sebago and Kennebec from PEI seed potato stock and they definitely need ground cure time, if I recall correctly.   

 

 

Sheesh. I'd missed the first bit when you posted it, but after reading lemniscate's post the penny dropped.

Keeping your potatoes in the fridge forces the potato to turn its starches back into sugars (ie, antifreeze). This used to be a real PITA for me when I was doing fresh-cut fries at my restaurant, because it takes a couple of weeks before they're fit to use for french fries after they come out of the cooler. If my supplier shipped me recently-refrigerated spuds, my fries would over-brown when I cooked them. I eventually learned how to blanch them at an extra-low temperature for a longer time, to compensate.

I don't know whether/to what extent this is a factor, but that's why I never keep potatoes in the fridge (though I'll make an exception for baby potatoes, which don't seem to be much affected).

[MokaPot]

With russets, I often cube them and fry them in oil (just a couple of Tbsps. of oil). The russets always soften up that way. I've never had the "hard russet potato" problem with fried potatoes. Maybe just lucky all this time.

 

Anyway, I also heard about not storing potatoes and onions together, something about the gas(es).

 

I'll store my potatoes on the counter for now on.

[heidih]

4 minutes ago, MokaPot said:

I'll store my potatoes on the counter for now on.

 

No please. Cool, dark, well ventilated spot is my preference. Old woven Easter basket - garage in Winter (California so no frost happening), and pantry in warmer months. 

[TdeV]

Long ago I also heard that storing potatoes and onions together was not ideal. Is there any basis to that idea?

[Okanagancook]

Yes.  They are both vegetables that are moist and it’s the moisture from both them that create an environment for mould growth.

Keep them separated in a well vented area...and preferably dark.

[Toliver]

@lemniscate (and @heidih) may be on to something. Potatoes aren't just harvested and sent to market. They have to go through a curing process/storage before being sent to the grocery stores. 

Thirty years ago, I had a friend who tried baking a potato in her oven. It should have taken only about an hour to bake it but after the 2-hour mark it was still hard as a rock. She eventually got so frustrated she threw it in the trash. It's likely she she got a potato that wasn't processed correctly.

[Smithy]

4 hours ago, Toliver said:

@lemniscate (and @heidih) may be on to something. Potatoes aren't just harvested and sent to market. They have to go through a curing process/storage before being sent to the grocery stores. 

Thirty years ago, I had a friend who tried baking a potato in her oven. It should have taken only about an hour to bake it but after the 2-hour mark it was still hard as a rock. She eventually got so frustrated she threw it in the trash. It's likely she she got a potato that wasn't processed correctly.

 

I must be missing something here. A few years ago I had a chance to collect potatoes directly from a farm plot (the harvester had missed some). We thought they had wonderful flavor, and we didn't notice anything unusual about their cooking properties. They were russets. Does the variety matter?

[Porthos]

@Smithy See Lemniscate's comments up-thread. The one's the harvester missed were most likely already finished with the post-kill-the-vines waiting period.

[Smithy]

8 hours ago, Porthos said:

@Smithy See Lemniscate's comments up-thread. The one's the harvester missed were most likely already finished with the post-kill-the-vines waiting period.

 

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for pointing me back to the pertinent info.

[kayb]

On the other hand, there's the new potatoes classification. Around here, new potatoes are tiny, ping-pong ball size or smaller, and carefully dug from beneath the plant while leaving the plant and some of the potatoes in place.

 

I get these at the farmers' market, many with dirt still on them. They're usually the redskin potatoes, but I have occasionally gotten golds. The skin is so thin and delicate as to just rub off with a hard scrub under the faucet.

 

I love these roasted underneath a chicken or pork chops, or just tossed in olive oil and roasted on their own. They have a sweet, buttery flavor that goes away in the older, cured potatoes. They do take an amazingly long time to roast, though, compared with similar-sized chunks of a matured potato.