The right way to cook potatoes
Your mum or dad may have taught you this when you were a child: You take a small sharp knife and try to get through the cooked potato, if you can do it easily, it's cooked. It always works of course, but it's a bit subjective, "easily" is not very easy to appreciate and then it depends on the variety of the potato, "Rattes" for example are much firmer than the "Belles de Fontenay".
Can you do any better than cutting through them with a knife?
Yes, and it's quite simple, let's imagine you want to make melting potatoes, and therefore be sure they are well cooked, then in that case, stick the famous knife in the potato, vertically, and lift the potato.
It comes with the knife? => undercooked, continue cooking
Does it fall off the knife by itself, or does the knife come out by itself? => they are cooked!
Obviously this only works with good sized potatoes, with grits or rattes it's wrong, the weight is too low for them to fall back...
In summary: To test the cooking of a potato, stick a knife vertically into it and lift it up, if the potato stays in place or falls back on its own after a few seconds, it is well cooked.
Can you do any better than cutting through them with a knife?
Yes, and it's quite simple, let's imagine you want to make melting potatoes, and therefore be sure they are well cooked, then in that case, stick the famous knife in the potato, vertically, and lift the potato.
It comes with the knife? => undercooked, continue cooking
Does it fall off the knife by itself, or does the knife come out by itself? => they are cooked!
Obviously this only works with good sized potatoes, with grits or rattes it's wrong, the weight is too low for them to fall back...
In summary: To test the cooking of a potato, stick a knife vertically into it and lift it up, if the potato stays in place or falls back on its own after a few seconds, it is well cooked.
Lasts posts
Oven height
When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.October 8th 20251,3485
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?September 3rd 20256,8393
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...August 26th 20256,2805
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20256,3875
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...August 8th 20254,5165
Other pages you may also like
The super powers of cornstarch
I start this new year by evoking an old product, that you most probably have in your cupboards, a white powder, often in a small cardboard package with a slightly outdated look, only the "gluten free" is relatively recent, it is simply cornstarch, hence its name of maïzena. It's used for a lot...January 14th 202214 K
The first breads of humanity?
I have already told you in a previous article the beautiful story of the croissants, but do you know what it is about the bread, who "invented" it, where and when? Well, you can imagine that recent discoveries, in 2018, have profoundly changed the history of bread.February 16th 201914 K5
How to break eggs properly?
It is a very common gesture in pastry, bakery and of course cooking: breaking eggs to incorporate them into a recipe. You have eggs (which professionals call "shell eggs" to differentiate them from liquid eggs in cartons or cans), and you must break them to incorporate the contents into your...June 26th 202114 K4.8
Wipe meats and fish before cooking
When you want to cook meat or fish, there's a very simple yet very important step to take before you even start: It's to dry, or wipe, each side of the meat or fish, sometimes called "dabbing" or "sponging". But why? And how? Let me explain.April 14th 20248,5944.5
Fried potatoes or fried mash?
In cooking there are a lot of dishes that appear to be extremely simple but which can actually prove to be very tricky. Amongst those that I'm aware of having this reputation are omelette and fried potatoes.February 6th 201125 K4.5
Post a comment or question
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.