Originally Posted by Hitch
Yes, that much I know. I've been cooking for 4+ decades, and I'm allegedly pretty good at it. I just don't yet have any feel for the realities of potatoes in this environment, but I've decided that worst case, I can cook the potatoes separately, if they don't cook enough; or cook another batch, if (heaven forfend) they end up as mush, (to me, that's the worst case because you can't un-incorporate them from the stew, if they end up effectively potato particles suspended in the stew stock), or, I can just make smashed spuds and serve the stew therewith.
I've noted that virtually all the self-appointed expeerts around the web either omit discussion of the reality of potatoes in a stew/soup/etc., omit the potatoes altogether, using barley or the like, instead, or say "oh, sorry," when commenters say that their potatoes came out like moosh. I've got several new IP/PC cookbooks, and that's also a topic that's curiously silent. Trial and error, then...which I don't love, in the kitchen, when it could result in wasting food.
But, {shrug}, I've scrubbed my reds, and I'll halve them at the last moment (they're large, not small, for reds), and we'll hope for the best. I considered leaving them whole, (and may well yet) even though that's downright odd for a stew. (It would make them easier to retrieve, to cook further, AND significantly decrease the possibility of a stew that's really a potato&corn chowder with beef...)
I dunno...onward, onward, rode the 600. Ours is not to burn or fry, ours is but to reason why...
(With apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
Hitch
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