Elements of the theory and practice of cookery

By experiment it has been found that potatoes pared before being boiled lose much of their food value dur- ing cooking, nearly one-fifth of the mineral matter, with some other soluble substances, and a little starch, pass- ing into the cooking water. The longer the potatoes lie in water before they are cooked, the greater is this loss. Observe therefore the following Rules for paring Potatoes 116. 1. When potatoes are free from black spots or other imperfections, boil them in their skins, paring off only a narrow strip around the middle of each potato to prevent its bursting. 2. Always pare potatoes thinly^ and take out eyes with the point of the knife. 3. To make the loss from pared potatoes as small as possible, put them at once into boiling water and as quickly as possible bring it to the boiling-point again. Old or poor potatoes must he pared^ and are improved by soak- ing for one hour in cold water, to restore the moisture lost by long dr3dng. 117. Potatoes cooked to make them digestible. — Hard compact granules of raw starch, enclosed by walls of woody fibre, are not easily acted upon by the digestive juices. The object of cooking potatoes is to break open these cell-walls and to soften and swell the starch. Heat and moisture are needed to do this. FUEL FOODS: SOME STARCHY PLANTS 65 118. Cross-section of a potato and potato starch under the micro- scope.— A. Soak the thinnest slice of potato you can cut in cold water for a few minutes. Examine a bit of this slice under the microscope. What shape are the cells? Compare their size with that of the starch grains in them. B. Draw from memory the cross- section as you saw it under the microscope, and write a description of it. C. Examine under the microscope a speck of potato starch the size of a pinhead. Observe the shape and markings of the granules. Draw a few granules from memory. How TO COOK Potatoes 119. 1. Potatoes must be cooked till soft all through. 2. Since potatoes contain more than sufficient water to soften the starch in them, they may be baked. The excess of water is changed to steam during cooking, leaving the starch dry and flaky. If allowed to recon- dense, the starch reabsorbs it, making the potatoes " soggy " instead of " mealy," as they should be. Pota- toes allowed to stand in water after they are cooked through absorb some of the cooking water with the same result. What precautions do we take to avoid this? (See recipes for Boiled and Baked Potatoes.) 3. Rapidly boiling water wears off the outside of the potato before the middle is cooked. Let it huhhle gentli/. 4. If the outside of large potatoes becomes soft while the centres are still hard, add one pint of cold water. Enough heat remains inside of the potatoes to finish cooking them. 5. Potatoes baked in a slow oven become dry and hard. Quickly baked potatoes are more easily digested than boiled potatoes; slowly baked ones, less so. 66 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COOKERY Potato Recipes RiCED Potato Press boiled potatoes through a coarse strainer or a vegetable press into a hot dish. Mashed Potato Mash potatoes (boiled without their skins) in the kettle in which they were cooked, using a fork or a wire potato-masher. When free from lumps, add for each pint of mashed potato 1 tablespoonful of butter, melted in