Perfect potatoes - Guide - cooking potatoes

Sunset, Feb, 2003 by Jerry Anne Di Vecchio

Potatoes are subject to water woes. When you boil them unpeeled, their skins tend to break and let water soak in, making this already humble vegetable mushy and unattractive. To avoid waterlogged spuds, don't boil them at all; cook them gently in water slightly below the temperature of an active boil. The potatoes take a little longer to cook, but in most cases you get a watertight casing and succulent interior. Use this method to discover what a treat carefully cooked potatoes are in their skins, with butter and parsley, or how good a warm potato salad can be when the only liquids in it are flavorful oil and vinegar, not water the potatoes have absorbed.

Slow-cooked potatoes. Scrub thin-skinned white or red potatoes (1 to 2 in. wide). Place them, no more than two layers deep, in a pan and cover them by about 1 inch of water. Set over high heat; just before water boils, reduce heat to maintain water temperature at 185[degrees] to 195[degrees] (when a few bubbles pop up from pan bottom regularly but surface of water is smooth). Cook, uncovered, just until potatoes are tender when pierced: for 1-inch diameter, about 25 minutes; 1 1/2 inches, 35 to 40 minutes; and 2 inches, about 50 minutes. Serve, or turn off heat and leave in water up to 30 minutes.