Saturday, March 3, 2018

Fermented Potatoes?

I'm a big fan of the homemade sauerkraut--easy to make with only salt, cabbage, and time. A friend told me about fermented potatoes. Doesn't sound quite right, right? I read two articles on the topic--Traditional Potato Preparation Reduces Acrylamide and Crickly, Crackly Fermented Potatoes.

First article talks about how grandma used to soak spuds before we knew why--and it goes into some of the why (soaking/fermenting reduces a carcinogenic compound during cooking and converts sugars). Second article describes a chef's comments (quoted from another source) about soaked potatoes being the only way to achieve excellent potato results--and this second article offers a roasted potato recipe.

I tried the a batch of roasted potato wedges tonight after a 3-day brine; didn't get a huge hit of tangy taste of fermented vegetable, but the potatoes were delicious and they took a bit of time to brown up--a successful experiment that I'll try again soon.

PS: If you find the math behind brine solution a little annoying (3.5%, or 4.2%, etc.), my go-to brine is 1 tsp. canning salt per cup of water.

Red potato wedges in a half gallon mason jar
in saltwater brine, with a cabbage leaf atop 

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