Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit

Author:Niki Segnit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Potato

Fifty flavour compounds have been identified in raw potato. They don’t add up to much. The fragrance of Solanum tuberosum is mild. When cooked, the compounds multiply, but what we might term potato flavour is still pretty recessive. Which is by no means a criticism. The flavour of peeled, boiled potato has a slightly cheesy, roasted flavour besides the fruity-floral notes. Potato crisps have more of a caramel and spice quality. Leaving the skin on gives an extra dimension of cocoa, malt and rye. The texture and size of a potato variety often determines our choice more than its flavour. Waxy types are recommended for gratins, stews and potato salads because they keep their shape. Floury potatoes can also be used for stews, although you’ll need to add them later in the cooking if you don’t want them to fall apart. Waxy potatoes are generally held to be more flavourful than floury potatoes. This is partly a matter of density, but waxy types do seem to harbour a greater complexity of flavour, next to the strong, starchy-earthy quality of floury – which, incidentally, I love, in particular alongside greens or lettuce.

Potato & Barley: What to turn to when your go-to comfort foods stop comforting you. Estonian mulgipuder is a combination of potato and pearl barley, cooked together then mashed to create a soft yet chewy mass that tastes like hot buttered chestnuts. Eat a bucket of it after a painful break-up. Fry onions in bacon fat (or butter), with or without some bacon, until sweet and brown, and pile them onto the pale porridge as you weep over what might have been.

Potato & Bay Leaf: See Bay Leaf & Potato, here

Potato & Black Bean: See Black Bean & Potato, here

Potato & Broad Bean: See Broad Bean & Potato, here

Potato & Buckwheat: Tastes like a morning at the allotment. Yavorivsky pie, a speciality of western Ukraine, is a hearty edifice of bread dough folded around a deep pile of mashed potato, toasted buckwheat and fried onions, then served with sour cream. It’s a bit like a huge paratha, except that you don’t roll it out once the dough is tucked around the filling. Actually, parathas made with a buckwheat dough and a potato filling are eaten in India, especially in the north, during the autumn festival of Navaratri. Pizzoccheri is a dish of buckwheat pasta cooked with potatoes and cabbage and served with lots of butter and cheese. Native to Valtellina, in northern Italy, in recent decades it has hit the big time, spreading to other Italian regions and abroad.

Potato & Caraway: See Caraway & Potato, here

Potato & Chickpea: Panelle e cazzilli are Sicilian fried snacks made with chickpea and potatoes, respectively. Panelle are fritters made with a very plain chickpea batter that has been allowed to set, then cut into shapes and deep-fried. The fritters can be slim or quite chunky, depending on the vendor. Buy some from a cart in Palermo and you’re likely to get some cazzilli too. Cazzilli are like potato croquettes, but thinner.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.