Potatoes soak up a lot of flavor, so salting the water prior to cooking is a good idea for the best taste.
Add a half teaspoon of salt to the water. Turn the heat to high and bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat to low to maintain a simmer, and cover. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes, or until you can easily poke through the potatoes with a fork.
Well, the salt raises the boiling temperature of the water, resulting in a super-creamy inside and a wonderfully flavourful, salt-crusted outside. And no, they are not super-salty potatoes, as they are boiled whole, the salt doesn't reach the inside of the potatoes.
Potatoes are, by nature, really starchy, and starches require a decent amount of salt to taste good. Adding tons of salt to the water your potatoes boil in is necessary to get the seasoning inside the spuds.
Ideally, you should wait until your water is at a rolling boil. The boiling water will agitate and dissolve the salt quickly. You can add salt to your cold water if your prefer, though. You don't want to forget it after all!
Adding salt to water does two things, it increases the boiling point and decreases the specific heat capacity. Specific heat capacity refers to the amount of heat that is required to raise the temperature of a substance by one degree Celsius.
Improve your vegetables' texture and flavor. Vegetables with high water content tend to become mushy and bland if they aren't rid of excess moisture before cooking. To do that, you need two things: salt and time. Salting these watery vegetables draws out extra water and flavor molecules.
If you're roasting potatoes start-to-finish in the oven, you should always salt them after cooking. This is to avoid drawing out moisture while they cook and making the outer layer leathery.
Season with a teaspoon of salt per pound of potatoes. Bring water to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium and cook at rapid simmer until potatoes are easily pierced with a paring knife, about 10 minutes for chopped potatoes and 20 minutes for whole potatoes.
Q: Why is it common to salt the exterior of a baked potato? A: Chefs started doing this years ago to allow the salt to absorb or draw out the moisture of the potato while baking, which results in a dry, fluffy potato.
Bring the water to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low. Cover the pot with a lid and let simmer until fork-tender, about 10-15 minutes for small and/or cubed potatoes or 20-25 minutes for large potatoes. Drain and cool.
The boiling point
Cubed spuds will take around 15 minutes where larger chunks or whole new potatoes will be 20-25 minutes. To check when they are done, pierce the potatoes with the tip of a knife to see how much resistance there is. If it goes in easily, you're done!
To accomplish proper seasoning, the cooking water should be extremely salty. For 5 quarts of water, add ½ cup of salt to achieve the best flavor.
One particularly stubborn myth is that adding salt will make the water take longer to come to a boil. Chemically speaking, it's true that salt raises the boiling point; however, the amount of salt used in cooking applications is so small that it won't make a difference with timing.
If you find your potatoes are too salty, adding more liquid, such as milk or buttermilk, or more potatoes can help tone it down. No more potatoes on hand? Try adding some mashed cauliflower or root vegetables to the mix.
For most potato dishes it's important to add the potatoes to cold water and allow the water to come to a boil with the potatoes in the water. The potato starch can react as soon as it comes in contact with hot water, which will promote uneven cooking and mealy potatoes.
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. It's difficult to oversalt the water (and if so much salt scares you, remember most of it will go down the drain or be saved to cook other starches in).
Season your water like you're cooking pasta
Just like pasta, cooking vegetables in salted water helps the seasoning permeate the vegetable. Bonus: the salt helps the color stay Day-Glo, too.
Drink salt water to replace lost sodium
Sodium is considered one of the essential electrolytes. While electrolytes generally help the body function, sodium is especially important for muscle and nerve functions.
So yes, salt increases the boiling temperature, but not by very much. If you add 20 grams of salt to five litres of water, instead of boiling at 100° C, it'll boil at 100.04° C. So a big spoon of salt in a pot of water will increase the boiling point by four hundredths of a degree!
When a salt solution is heated, the solvent (assumedly water) will evaporate at a greater rate because the water molecules have greater energy. Eventually the solution will pass its boiling point, and the water will begin to boil off (evaporate) to form a gas.
To make a salt water solution, you'll need just two things: salt and warm water. It's important that the water is warm, as this helps the salt dissolve. The Mayo Clinic recommends adding 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of table salt to 8 ounces of warm water.
For every liter or quart of water you will need about 1 tsp of salt, or enough salt so that the water tastes just a little bit salty.
Can You Boil Potatoes For Too Long? Yes. If you boil potatoes for too long, they'll lose their structure and absorb too much water. That means that they'll become mushy, won't have the correct texture, and won't hold their shape.
Do not cover. (Covering changes the environment in the pot and can make the potatoes turn mushy.) Check the potatoes after 5 minutes. Cubed potatoes will cook more quickly than whole potatoes; smaller potatoes will cook more quickly than larger potatoes.