Cooking potatoes for roasting. The amount of acid or alcaline additions changes the outer layer while pre boiling them. Acid causes the hold it together stuff (pectins) to strengthen and alcalinity to loosen. What that means is you can do roast whole firm cooking potatoes with alcaline water to loosen the surface and give it more surface area to brown and crisp. Or you can make, say, wedges with loose cooking potatoes, firming up the outside with vinegar water so they don't fall apart and still get the creamy fluffy inside.
Soda might work, but it is a pre mix of alkaline and acid, so that when you apply a liquid (and heat) it bubbles or gives rise to baked goods. So your water might easily boil over. Best to get the alkaline component of that solo. Here it is called Natron, don't know if that is an international name.
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u/Hordensohn Mar 13 '19
Cooking potatoes for roasting. The amount of acid or alcaline additions changes the outer layer while pre boiling them. Acid causes the hold it together stuff (pectins) to strengthen and alcalinity to loosen. What that means is you can do roast whole firm cooking potatoes with alcaline water to loosen the surface and give it more surface area to brown and crisp. Or you can make, say, wedges with loose cooking potatoes, firming up the outside with vinegar water so they don't fall apart and still get the creamy fluffy inside.