Potatoes are the main ingredient here (duh!). So no wonder they are the base of every mashed potato recipe and no wonder they have a big part in the final taste of your mashed potatoes. So what kind of potatoes are best for turning them into mashed potatoes?
Lets learn a few thing about potatoes first!
Potato is a starchy root vegetable crop that comes from a plant called Solanum tuberosum Solanaceae (or at least from some of the plants subspecies). Potatoes all come from the area that is today Peru and Bolivia. More specifically – southern Peru, just north of Lake Titicaca.
Potato came to Europe around the year 1700 and from Europe mariners spread it all over the world. Still the most diverse potatoes come from the place of origin – in Andes you can find more that 100 different potato varieties in a single valley. Andes really are the home of potatoes. Some of the more known potato varieties include Désirée, Bintje, Fianna, King Edward, Kipfler, New, Nicola, Pink Eye, Pink Fir Apple, Red Pontiac, Rooster, Russet Burbank, Spunta, Chiloé (Camota, Cielo, Pachacona, Clavela Blanca, Cabritas, Chelina).
Potato is the the fourth largest food crop in the world, right after rice, wheat, and corn.
What is in a potato?
Mostly starch! There are about 26 grams of carbohydrates in an average potato and most of it is starch. An interesting medical fact is that some of the starch in potatoes is resistant to enzymatic digestion that happens in stomach and small intestine. It comes almost intact all the way to the large intestine. This has similar effects and benefits as fiber.
Benefits Of Potato – What Are Potato Benefits?
Potato benefits include providing bulk, starch mentioned above offers protection against colon cancer, improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, lowers plasma cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations…).
How much of this healthy starch stays in the potatoes depends on how we cook them and what kind of mashed potato recipe do we use :). But enough about that :)
Common Ways To Cook Potatoes
There are more ways to cook potatoes. You can cook them with skin-on or peeled, whole or cut up, with seasonings or without. But anyway you cook them – you must cook them to break down the starch. Next time we will look at potatoes more from the mashed potato recipe point of view or at least from a cooks point of view. Still – mashed potatoes are not the only way to use them in your meals. If you are interested in other potato recipes, you will find plenty of them if you follow the link provided.
