Week 6: Potato, Patata, starches and grains.

This week we learned everything we needed to learn about potatoes and starches! This vegetable is one of the most important guest in our kitchen, there are thousands of recipes in where Potatoes are more than welcome. 

Besides its enormous nutritional value, the potatoes are cheap, the amount of nutrients in a potato is so high that is one of the most complete meals there are. 

Potatoes originated in South America, most historians attribute it to Peru, even tho, by the time Europeans arrived to the New World, Potatoes could be easily found throughout the Americas, from The United States to Uruguay. Throughout Europe, the  most important new food in the 19th century was the potato, which had three major advantages over foods for the consumer: its lower rate of spoilage, its bulk (which easily satisfied hunger), and its cheapness. The crop slowly spread across Europe, such that, for example, by 1845 it occupied one-third of Irish arable land. 

I'm pretty sure you all have heard of the Great Irish Potato Famine, a lack of genetic diversity from the low number of varieties left the crop vulnerable to disease, in 1845, a plant disease known as late blight, caused by the fungus-lke oomycete Phytophthora infestans spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western ireland, resulting in the crop failures that led to this problem, and this is why thousands and thousands of Irish families came to America.

Anyway this are some of the things we did on Potatoes and starches week:

Mashed Potatoes 

Duchess Potatoes 

Croquette Potatoes 

Potato Gnocchi 

Potato Dauphinois 

Baked and Twice-Baked Potatoes 

Roasted Red Potatoes 

Rice Pilaf 

Risotto 

Polenta

You all have cooked at least one of the things from the list above, my two favorite are Mashed potatoes and Potato Dauphinois when it comes to potato base dishes, and Risotto when it comes to rice base dishes. 

The secret about mashed potato is the cream, a good mashed potato is a creamy mashed potato, in class we were taught to add heavy cream and butter, enough to make it creamy, you can add parmesan cheese if you want, or any other cheese you feel like. 

I personally follow this 3 steps: Boil, smash and season, besides adding heavy cream and butter during the smashing step, it is as easy as that people. I hope you enjoy. 

Potato Dauphinois, beautiful name right? was a discovery to me, I had never tried it, I guess I'm just not a frequent restaurant visitor, LOL, but believe me, it is delicious. 

Dauphinoise is the French method of baking potatoes in milk, cream and cheese. In the French region of Dauphine, every home cook has her own formula for preparing this gratin. 

You first need to make potato slices, very thin that you will later consecutively put one over the another, making like a flowery design, for each cap, you add cream and spread shredded gruyere cheese, or parmesan cheese, or any cheese you want, plus salt and pepper, and then repeat the process until you fill the bowl. To finalize place in the oven until gratin, you can let it rest, but before you serve it, put it back in the oven for at least 5 minutes. 

Risotto, Risotto, Risotto! Yum, we all love Risotto, I Heart Risotto, I really do, and the great thing about this is that you can cook any kind of it, veggie risotto, beef risotto, seafood risotto, the list is endless.