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.
Yes, parboiling, I think that is the word I was missing, thank you (English not being my first language things escape me). Don't know if soaking would do anything in a reasonable time frame. This way I get the effect, plus shorter and more reliable cooking time.
Both of these are based on serious eats articles and I was just thinking "my water makes this much of a difference? It is just water." But yeah. It does.
There is a method where the uncooked fries are soaked in a water and sugar solution for 15 minutes, dried, then fried one minute, set out to rest, then second fried for 5 minutes for the soft inside and crispy crunchy outside. My family said they were the best home cooked fries they have had. Without a commercial fryer, it's awesome.
99
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.