(no subject)

[unicornduke]

 I made the vindaloo recipe again and the potatoes didn't really cook. again. 

I boiled them in the stew for over an hour and some of them were still not cooked texture. They weren't hard but they were very odd. They were all in 1/2 thick or less pieces. I wonder if the lemon juice was stopping them from cooking? I can't figure it out. 

But lesson learned, cook potatoes separately. 

It could have been the type of potatoes but I just cooked that variety on friday as a whole potato in water and it boiled in a reasonable amount of time. hmmmmmmmm

Comments

[graydon]

Water convects (and thus does heat transfer) way more than stew does.

This happens with rice, too; trying to cook rice in soup rather than water is way slower.

Potatoes are still faster than turnip, but, yeah. Boil them first and it'll speed everything up. And you can keep the potato water as a soup starter if so inclined.

[unicornduke]

I hadn't realized it would be that much slower. The original recipe said 20 minutes, which I didn't believe in the first place but over an hour and still not quite right! It was still mostly water at that point since I'd been simmering it with the lid on.

I'll definitely do them separately. I've never used potato water as a soup starter. How's that work? I don't do soups much. I used to do a milk based soup where I just threw carrots, peas, corn, potatoes in and maybe chicken if I got wild but that was back in college when I thought spices were the italian spice grinder.

[graydon]

20 minutes implies darn near grated potato, very small pieces.

The thing with soup is you need something to carry the flavour; just water doesn't hold or carry flavour very well. And "fat is flavour" doesn't work too well in soups. (the fat will carry flavour; it will also float on top and mess with how things simmer.) So you use stock (bones boiled for the collagen) or if it's vegetable you maybe destructively boil a vegetable to get something in the water that'll support flavours. Potato water from boiling potatoes works pretty well for that; if it's chicken soup it'll cut down on the amount of stock you need to add, if it's some kind of vegetable soup you can start there by itself. So if you were going to start a small soup with four or six cups of water, or four cups of water and two of stock, you could go something like five cups of potato water and one of stock and it would work. (if you go four and two it's extra-nice. Maybe you have lots of stock. :)

[unicornduke]

I have basically zero stock. I don't like the taste of the store stuff much and I still haven't gotten around to boiling the deer bones I've got in my PA freezer for stock. So this is a great alternative. I might get a bunch of chicken bones from farmer friend because they're pretty cheap and I made stock with what was left of a whole chicken I got from them and that was lovely.

Thanks!

[graydon]

You're welcome!

Bunch of chicken bones sounds like a good place to start.

[dorchadas]

I just wanted to say that I have learned so much from this thread that I didn't even know I didn't know, so thank you.

[graydon]

You're welcome!

Food is complicated. People are complicated. Cooking involves people, food, and fire, which is just asking for trouble.

[tielan]

I've always found it best to cook the potatoes separately to anything else, in just about any recipe.

[unicornduke]

Oh interesting! I hadn't realized that. It's definitely going to be my strategy going forward. Thankfully, the potatoes finish cooking in the microwave when I reheat them so it's not a big deal.