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Jerusalem Artichoke Math

1 pound Jerusalem artichokes = 6 cups whole = 3 cups sliced

Potatoes

“All that meat and no potatoes,” sings Louis Armstrong in a famous song. “It just ain’t right, like green tomatoes.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. Potatoes turn a slab of meat into a meal. Add a vegetable and you have the definition of classic American cuisine.

Potatoes are enjoying the same revival as tomatoes, with new varieties and heir-looms popping up all the time. And, by all means, I encourage you to get excited over the differently colored potatoes (red, blue, yellow) and to discern flavor nuances among them (buttery, creamy). Basically, though, potatoes fall into three categories: baking (also known as “floury,” “mealy,” or “russet”), waxy (also known as “low-starch”), and all-purpose (also known as “medium starch”). The important thing to know is that baking potatoes are best for baking, mashing, and deep-frying. Waxy and all-purpose potatoes, which are thin skinned, are best for holding their shape in salads, soups, and stews.

Availability

Because they store well, potatoes are available year-round.

Storage

Homegrown potatoes should be cured before storing to toughen their skins. One to two weeks spread out in a protected area at 60° to 75°F is ideal. Then store them in a cold, damp, dark spot. Under ideal conditions, potatoes will keep for 4 to 6 months.

How to Buy

Look for firm, dry potatoes that show no sign of sprouting and a minimum of bruises, healed or otherwise.

Preparation

Potatoes are either peeled with a vegetable peeler or scrubbed well with a stiff vegetable brush, depending on whether the recipe calls for a peeled potato. Brown, black, or green spots should be cut away. Once peeled, the flesh of the potato will darken on exposure to air. To prevent this, drop potatoes into a bowl of water as soon as they are peeled.

Cooking Ideas

There are so many wonderful ways to prepare potatoes that the mind boggles at the thought of coming up with a few cooking ideas. Quite simply, potatoes can be cooked by almost any method (baking, boiling, braising, pan-frying, roasting, sautéing, steaming). When in doubt, though, bake or mash and be lavish with the butter. And when baking potatoes, do prick the potatoes in several places with a fork to release the steam that builds up; cleaning up after an exploded potato is a miserable chore.

Mashed potatoes can be combined with other winter vegetables to make a number of classic northern European dishes. Colcannon (Irish) and kailkenny (Scottish) are made from mashed potatoes and sautéed cabbage. Clapshot and neeps and tatties are both combinations of mashed potatoes and turnips from Scotland. Rumbledethumps is that same dish plus cheese, also from Scotland. These are rib-sticking dishes that can sustain you over a long, cold winter.

Potato Math

1 pound potatoes = 2 to 3 large potatoes = 3½ cups chopped or sliced = 3 cups shredded = 2 cups cooked and mashed

Sweet Potatoes

Like regular potatoes, there are different types of sweet potatoes, expressed as “dry-fleshed” or “moist-fleshed.” The terminology refers to the mouthfeel, not the actual moisture present in the sweet potato. Moist-fleshed types tend to convert more of their starch to sugar during cooking, becoming softer and sweeter than the dry-fleshed types. The moist-fleshed types are often called yams.

The confusion over yams versus sweet potatoes began several decades ago, when orange-fleshed sweet potatoes were introduced in the southern United States. Producers and shippers wanted to distinguish these sweet potatoes from the more traditional, yellow-fleshed types and adopted the term “yams,” never guessing that in just a few decades, the global supermarket and immigration patterns would bring the true yam into the United States, causing endless bewilderment.

Different sweet potato cultivars have markedly different flesh colors and flavors.