The ultimate guide to cooking your potatoes perfectly

This is how to choose the right varieties and cooking methods for a myriad of potato dishes.

Potatoes with togarashi and wasabi butter "en papillote" Credit: Food Network

Stream free On Demand

Perfect Potatoes

episode • The Cook Up with Adam Liaw • 

cooking • 

25m

G

episode • The Cook Up with Adam Liaw • 

cooking • 

25m

G

After setting out to create a how-to guide for cooking the simple, humble potato, I soon realised that it's not always simple to cook and it has a rich history.

Hailing from South America, it's understood that potatoes were brought to Europe by Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s, before spreading further around the world in the 1600s.

They have played a notable role in society for being nutrient-rich, easy to grow and cheap. They are known for their role in the Industrial Revolution, and being the first vegetable grown in space.

Credit: Petrina Tinslay

So, when faced with a selection of knobbly dimpled beauties, distinguished by names reminiscent of cars (Pontiac), royals (King Edward), and dubious cocktails (Red Rascal), how do you choose?

Well, that all depends on what you want to make.

Spuds fall into two main camps: floury and waxy. The main differentiating factor? Starch. Starch granules in potatoes absorb moisture as they cook, swelling and bursting. Potatoes with more burst granules are more floury and fluffy. Fewer burst granules means potatoes that are waxier and intact.

Floury potatoes

Use floury potatoes for frying, mashing, baking and roasting. They make great gnocchi and potato scallops.

Avoid boiling or steaming if you plan to use them in salads since they don't hold their shape so well.

Examples of floury potato varieties include King Edward, Sebago, Russet, Coliban, and Kennebec.

Waxy potatoes

Boil or steam waxy potatoes to roast and saute. They work best in salads, soups and casseroles.

Avoid frying waxy potatoes (their high water content is likely to result in soggy chips) or mashing (they tend to hold their form and produce a chunky mash). There can be exceptions to the rule, depending on the variety. For example, Dutch creams make for a smooth and flavourful mash.

Examples of waxy potatoes include Kipflers, Bintje, Pink Fir, Red Pontiac, Purple Congo, Dutch Creams, Fingerlings and New Potatoes.

All-rounder potatoes

All-rounder potatoes sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum and are the jacks of all trades. Examples of these include Desiree, Red Rascal, Royal Blue, Yukon Gold, Pontiac and Golden Delights.

Once you know which potato to use, here are some tips to help you get the desired – or Desiree'ed – final result.

Fries

Pre-cook and dry

After cutting your potatoes into fries, rinse them under running water to remove excess starch and sugar, which can cause unwanted browning. Then, parboil them. In Adam Liaw’s recipe for the perfect fish and chips, he boils potatoes in vinegar water to help keep them intact, then dries them in the oven. Another option to dry-boiled potatoes is to freeze them.

Choose your fat

Deep-frying (and roasting) requires cooking the potatoes at a high temperature, which means you’ll need an oil with a high smoke point, like canola, sunflower, safflower, rice bran, or peanut oil.

If you want more decadent fries, use animal fat, such as goose, duck or beef fat, as per Matthew Evans' crinkle cut chips.

Crinkle cut chips Credit: Alan Benson

Fry more than once

First, fry your chips for around 2-5 minutes. Remove and allow the fat to completely drain and the chips to dry, then return them to the oil for around 4-7 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut.

Roasted potatoes

Pre-cook

When it comes to roasting potatoes, a parboil is recommended. Adam Liaw adds bicarb soda to the cooking water, which helps to break down the surface of the potatoes to create "the ideal rough texture that crisps up beautifully during roasting".

Pan preparation

You can preheat the oil in the pan to up your chances of a crispy potato, as Sally Courtney does in her best-ever rosemary roast potatoes recipe. Either way, don't overcrowd your potatoes in the pan, as they will steam rather than roast.

Mash

Boil vs bake

The classic method to mash potatoes is to peel and chop them and boil them in salted water. But another method is to boil the potatoes, skin on. This prevents them from absorbing too much water and allows the mash to become creamier.

You can also bake potatoes for a mash, as in Colcannon (Irish-mashed potatoes). This technique reduces the water content of the spuds, making for a more intense flavour.

A ricer (or mouli) can be used to pulverise potatoes before mashing, like in Guillaume Brahimi's Paris mash recipe.

The creamer

Milk, cream, butter, ghee, buttermilk, sour cream, cheese and olive oil (for a non-dairy option) are all popular ingredients to make a mash creamy. They can also be used in combination.

"I particularly love the grassy notes that olive oil adds to mashed potatoes," says Silvia Colloca of her olive oil mashed potatoes recipe. The total ratio of potatoes to creamer starts from around 3:1, up to 1:1 in Heston Blumenthal's luxurious perfect mash.

Credit: Rob Palmer

Salads

Boil vs steam

Try boiling potatoes whole and unpeeled to prevent moisture absorption. Steaming potatoes can help retain flavour, so if you have little waxy potatoes on hand, steam them whole over salted water.

Baked

Pierce the skin

Leaving the skin on, prick the potatoes all over with a fork or skewer to let the steam escape as they roast in the oven – or, as in Oscar Smith's recipe, in the barbecue:

The thousands of potato varieties now available worldwide (in Australia, there are even locally developed tubers: the pink-hued Ruby Lou and the gnocchi star, Toolangi delight) means there are now endless culinary possibilities.

And, if ever your potato dish hasn't worked out as you hoped, now you know it may have been because you didn't have the right potato for the job.