Simple hacks to remove starch from potatoes | The Times of India (2024)

FAQs

How to get starch out of potatoes quickly? ›

Much of the surface starch can be washed away with a quick rinse in cold water. All you need to do is cut your potatoes and rinse them under cold water. For better results, soak the potatoes in a bowl of cold water for a few hours. At the bottom of the bowl, you'll notice cloudiness and starch.

If you're pressed for time, the slightly sticky, cut potatoes should be soaked for a minimum of 15 minutes. However, a longer soak time may allow more starch to be removed. So, if you can prep the fries ahead of time, a few hours of soaking can help make them even crispier.

Salt. The theory some Chef's would tell you about the reason they add salt to the water the potatoes are dumped in when freshly cut is to draw out the natural starches and sugars from the potato. So, that's a possible positive. It enhances the finished fry flavor... Another positive.

Another simple way of removing starch from potatoes is by simply blanching them in hot water.

America's Test Kitchen often recommends adding baking soda to the water in which you will boil potatoes, which further coaxes out the starch molecules. Aim for ½ teaspoon baking soda for every 8 to 10 cups or water, or 2 to 3 pounds of potatoes.

Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.

Amylase is present in the saliva of humans and some other mammals, where it begins the chemical process of digestion. Foods that contain large amounts of starch but little sugar, such as rice and potatoes, may acquire a slightly sweet taste as they are chewed because amylase degrades some of their starch into sugar.

Vinegar causes the potatoes to form a thin crust that further helps in retaining their shape. Vinegar increases the acid pH levels of water which further helps the potato just like when you add a little salt to the water while boiling eggs.

I'm literally, literally talking about how to lower the carb count in actual potatoes, with one super duper easy trick: Allowing your potatoes to cool (after cooking them in any manner your heart desires), refrigerating them overnight and reheating them. Yup, thats it!

Rinsing potatoes helps remove excess starch, so it is recommended to rinse the potatoes before cooking. To ensure even more starch is out of the way, it's recommended that they even be quickly rinsed after boiling. We recommend using hot water for rinsing after boiling and cold water prior to boiling.

Should you wash starch off potatoes before cooking? ›

By rinsing off the excess starch, you can achieve a better balance and control over the browning process, resulting in evenly cooked and beautifully golden fries. Another advantage of rinsing the potatoes is that the cold water makes the potato cells firmer, leading to crispier fries when fried.

Why use salt water for soaking potatoes? There's moisture naturally found in potatoes, and moisture is drawn to higher concentrations of salt. (This is a process called osmosis.) So, if you put the potatoes in a salt water bath, that will help draw out some of their moisture, resulting in crispier fries.

Potato starch is a white substance starch extracted from potatoes. The cells of the root tubers of the potato plant contain starch grains (leucoplasts). To extract the starch, the potatoes are crushed; the starch grains are released from the destroyed cells. The starch is then washed out and dried to powder.

Dense potatoes don't absorb seasonings easily, so you'll need to salt the water liberally so that the water the potatoes do drink up also carries in seasoning. And because potatoes are so timid in flavor, they need that salt to bring them out of their shells. Pour some salt in, then keep going.

Rinsing potatoes with cold water prior to boiling helps remove excess starch. Rinsing with hot water immediately after boiling can remove even more starch.

Soak those spuds

Potatoes are also loaded with starch, and too much of this good thing makes potatoes taste gummy, according to Potato Goodness. Fortunately, soaking helps with this conundrum as well, and Potato Goodness advises using cold water instead of hot water to avoid a reaction with the starch.

Grating and rinsing the potato will only remove some starch from the cut surfaces. Using warm or cold water in the rinse will not make any appreciable difference. However, multiple rinses or soaking will help reduce the starchiness, if so desired.

Potato tubers are good sources of nutrients. Sweet potato contains more carbohydrate, vitamin C and minerals than Irish potato. In the food processing methods employed, it was observed that boiling retains more carbohydrate than frying while frying retains more vitamin C and minerals than boiling.