The right way to cook potatoes


The right way to cook potatoes
If you simply boil them (not steam them), or bake them in the oven, at some point you will have to ask yourself the question "are they well cooked?".
16 K 4.7/5 (19 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:PotatoesCookingTipsKnife
Last modified on: March 23th 2020
For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend
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".

cooking potaoes in water



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!

Are they 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
Butter vs. grease
Butter vs. grease
We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased. But what's the difference between these 2 terms?
December 1st 20252,1905
Getting out of the fridge early
Getting out of the fridge early
Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?
November 24th 20251,4565
Who's making the croissants?
Who's making the croissants?
When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...
November 23th 20251,341
Oven height
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 20254,1465
The importance of sieving
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 20258,5003

Other pages you may also like
Herbs and temperature
Herbs and temperature
I have already talked to you about herbs in cooking, and about their great power of "seduction". The example of a salad is a great classic: on its own, it's a salad, which is normal, but the same salad in which you have added finely chopped fresh herbs, just before serving, you have much more than a...
April 25th 202011 K4.8
Fruits which can ruin your jelly
Fruits which can ruin your jelly
There are many ways of making a fruit mousse, but one of the simplest is to prepare a fruit jelly (basically a fresh fruit coulis with gelatine) and then mix this jelly before it sets completely with whipped cream. The result is perfect for filling a charlotte, for example. But do beware;...
March 6th 201379 K4.0
Steam for baking bread
Steam for baking bread
What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
June 16th 2021148 K4.5
The right way to use a blender
The right way to use a blender
You may well have a blender in your own kitchen. You know, that useful gadget that allows you to liquidize stuff at high speed into a smooth liquid. Of course, the most obvious use that comes to mind is for soups: if you have boiled some vegetables in water, with just a quick blast of the blender,...
May 31th 201724 K5
The "caves" in the bakery and pastry shop
The "caves" in the bakery and pastry shop
Maybe you've already done this? You want to make a brioche or a cake with fruit inside, you decide to proceed with your usual recipe, but also to add in the dough pieces of fresh and raw fruit, or whole fruit, for example pieces of apples or pears, good idea. When you bake it, everything seems to...
March 27th 202112 K4.9
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing

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.
I am not a leaving thing
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.

Back to top of page