In The Potato Hack, I have a whole chapter devoted to how to cook potatoes plain. Steaming, boiling, frying, and baking. Lots of methods for making tasty spuds with no oil or other ingredients. I also touch on the fact that there are different potatoes for different cooking methods.
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| Photo by Ann Overhulse Photography (My favorite Aunt!) |
The other day, VegetablePharm reg’lar, Gabrielle Kadar, the recently retired dentist from The Great White North, sent me an article showing the differences in cooking properties of each kind of potato.
The article can be found here: The Surprisingly Complex Chemistry of the Humble Spud.
Some excerpts that you may find useful:
The poster child of the mealy potatoes, at least in the United States, is the russet. As readers of this column will know, russets are the potato of choice for making chips. Their low water content means that when their flesh hits hot oil, much of the water boils off before a skin forms on the surface, leaving just enough inside to gently steam the chip’s innards. Their plentiful starch molecules help form the skin, and the fact that the flesh is quite dense means the oil never manages to seep deep enough to make the chips soggy. Mealy potatoes make the best mashed potatoes and baked potatoes as well.
Woe betide the cook who boils them for a salad, however – they will disintegrate. The right spud for that job is one of the many waxy varieties, which tend to be thin-skinned, smooth-fleshed, and moist. They are only around 16% starch by weight, and when you boil them, they keep their shape. (They also have beautifully whimsical names – the Charlotte, the Cara, the Anya.)
And speaking of Martians, here’s a science paper from 2007 in the journal Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology: Potatoes for Human Life Support in Space
The researchers concluding comments:
Small- scale space flight experiments showed that tubers can form and sprout in weightlessness. Clearly these are just modest steps toward the ultimate use of plants for human life support in space, but I am convinced that potatoes will one day supply food and oxygen to humans living on other planets, just as they have for hundreds of years on Earth.
Sign me up!
If you haven’t seen the movie, The Martian, I highly recommend it. A quote from the movie (and book):
With or with out skin or does it matter?
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Disregard. Chief, I just read it in the book!
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Does not matter. Up to you. I wrote quite a bit about skins in the book, but bottom line: up to you.
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Got the book! Love it. Thanks!
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Diet soda? Yay or nay?
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This is a question not a reply. Can you have wine while and?
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Diet soda: Nay!
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Wine: Nay!
All I can recommend is drinking water. If you are a normal drinker of coffee and tea, you may continue. If you normally use creamer or milk, try to abstain, a tiny bit of sugar or a packet of Stevia, OK. Just don’t try to “game” the system by using lots of artificial sweeteners or sugar. One of the things that makes the potato hack so effective is that you become unattached from the intense flavors of the normal diet. As a type of elimination diet, it’s best to give up everything. Coffee and tea seem to be complimentary to the potato hack, but the milk and sugar is not. However, as many people are somewhat reliant on coffee and tea for their “get up and go” it’s allowed on the potato hack.
Hope that helps!
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Read the book, did two weeks of peeled potato only 3 days each week. Down 6 pounds and 1 inch less in waist. I eat some cooked, usually roasted or boiled. Throw leftovers in fridge and eat the following day. Easy to do. The only thing I noticed which wasn’t expected was headache. Maybe I have an issue with night shades? I’m going to keep going for at least a few more weeks. I can tolerate the headaches, which feel like sinus pressure. Thanks again for all your work tatertot!
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Tim, great book. You did not mention microwave as a cooking method in the book. Will microwaving a potato maintain the same nutritional value as other methods of cooking? Do you have a recommended microwave recipe for a potato? Do you have a microwave method for stone-in-the-middle potato? Thanks
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I have nothing against using a microwave. A quick search of the book shows 4 instances of the word “microwave.” In retrospect, I should have included a separate section on microwave cooking.
– There is nothing more filling than munching on a cold
potato when hunger calls your name. These cold potatoes can also be
quickly reheated in the microwave or cubed and heated in a non-stick pan
for quite delicious home-fries. See the recipes section for more cooking
ideas (p 28).
– Day 1 – Pre-cook about 10 pounds of potatoes in any manner you
desire following the recipes found here. For breakfast, try the oil-free
pan-fried hash browns. For lunch, if you work, pop a couple potatoes in
the microwave or just eat them cold (p 56).
– Variation 1: Cook jacket potatoes in the microwave. Not quite as
crunchy, but OK in a pinch. Be sure to poke with a fork before cooking
or you’ll have a mess on your hands (p 76).
– 3-4 lbs a day of boiled or microwaved potatoes, as long as using
only 1T of fat per 2lbs, always give me about 0.6-0.7lbs loss daily.
It’s as if I ate nothing at all (my daily reqs are only about 1800kC) (p 129).
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I started on potato diet yesterday and checked my blood sugar, to my surprise random sugar is 100. That’s really amazing ,especially when you are diabetic.
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Great! I see my lowest FBG and PPs when doing the hack. Yes, it is pretty amazing.
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