Toggle sidebar

Purple potatoes and other fun things to do with starches

  • PATRONS: Did you know we've a chat function for you now? Look to the bottom of the screen, you can chat, set up rooms, talk to each other individually or in groups! Click 'Chat' at the right side of the chat window to open the chat up.
  • Love Gotmead and want to see it grow? Then consider supporting the site and becoming a Patron! If you're logged in, click on your username to the right of the menu to see how as little as $30/year can get you access to the patron areas and the patron Facebook group and to support Gotmead!
  • We now have a Patron-exclusive Facebook group! Patrons my join at The Gotmead Patron Group. You MUST answer the questions, providing your Patron membership, when you request to join so I can verify your Patron membership. If the questions aren't answered, the request will be turned down.
Barrel Char Wood Products
W

wayneb

Lifetime Patron
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Feb 7, 2007
5,794
11
38
Evergreen, CO (west of and above the Denver smog!)
E-man, thanks, but I'll bet they woudn't survive the trip. I'll find some here, I'm sure. I'm just bummed that the largest grower west of the Divide has apparently stopped growing this variety.

And Medsen, they are not the same. The purple Peruvians are deeply colored through and through. One other thing that intrigues me about that variety -- they are supposed to hold their color during cooking. That means I can hit them with a par-boil, necessary for hydrolyzing the starch enough to allow diastatic enzymes to yield some sugar conversion, and I should also be able to get some of that color out with an addition of an enzyme mix like Rapidase (which is good for anthocyanin extraction as well as pectin hydrolysis).
 
wayneb said:
Will do. Actually that batch is just waiting on the potatoes, and I'm looking for a source. The one farm in Idaho that I knew grew them in the past doesn't have any available this year. :(
Click to expand...
Living in Idaho does have SOME advantages! I've tried those spuds for cooking Wayne: fried, baked and otherwise. The color holds up well. They make for a great (but weird looking) potato salad! When boiled they do fade more towards a semi-pale indigo. Baking and frying holds the color better.

Do you know what farm they came from? I might be able to find another source for you.

:cheers:
Wade
 
Wade, if you can find ANY source for them, willing to ship at least 10 lbs, I'm interested! Purcell Mountain Farms apparently used to ship them, but when I went to their website they have no potatoes listed among their for sale items. I've sent them an email asking if they're still available but so far they haven't replied.

Hey, if YOU can find them and ship them to me, I'll pay ya - in advance if necessary!! ;D
 
Medsen Fey, the photo you posted looks like a variety of sweet potato. Pen Patat is made with sweet potatoes too.

Wayneb, "Mead and potatoes" sounds cool! You think the pigments will come out in solution?
 
Gardenmead said:
Medsen Fey, the photo you posted looks like a variety of sweet potato. Pen Patat is made with sweet potatoes too.

Wayneb, "Mead and potatoes" sounds cool! You think the pigments will come out in solution?
Click to expand...

I'm hoping so. That's why I plan to first microwave them (to gelatinize and hydrate the starches with steam from inside the potatoes) and then to treat them with Rapidase enzymes (which consists of a combo of pectinases and anthocyannin extracting enzymes). That should maximize the potential for color extraction - if I get any real extraction, I'll let you know.

BTW - this process also needs an amylase to support saccharification of the starches, and I'll either use commercial alpha amylase or some diastatic malt to augment the diastatic activity from some of the honey, which will provide the enzymes necessary for the starch to sugar conversion.
 
wayneb said:
I'm hoping so. That's why I plan to first microwave them (to gelatinize and hydrate the starches with steam from inside the potatoes)
Click to expand...

(cringe!) Okay, call me old school, but ayurvedic medicine (Indian holistic/herbal medicine) suggests microwaves destroy the healing properties of foods...not to mention, the flavor.

Finally, an area where I know stuff on this board.

Oh, wait, yes. We were talking about salt in E-Green's must. What DID happen to that, friend?
 
Angelic Alchemist said:
(cringe!) Okay, call me old school, but ayurvedic medicine (Indian holistic/herbal medicine) suggests microwaves destroy the healing properties of foods...not to mention, the flavor.

Finally, an area where I know stuff on this board.

Oh, wait, yes. We were talking about salt in E-Green's must. What DID happen to that, friend?
Click to expand...


I don't buy into the destruction of healing properties of foods, or flavor for that matter when cooking with a microwave. I use microwave cooking quite a bit, and like any other method of cooking it can be done correctly or incorrectly. Incorrectly yields overcooked, tough, dry flavorless foods. Correct usage is a whole other ballgame. The way I've witnessed most people using microwaves was like watching someone use a flamethrower to roast a marshmallow.

As with an electric or gas range, oven, wood fire, embers or any other heat ambient method of cooking, microwaves are about the proper application of heat in the proper dosage. Most people just put their food into the microwave, set the time and press start without bothering to use a temperature probe, adjust the power level, or use cookware designed specifically for what they are making. I think that the healing properties of food can be boiled, fried, barbecued, roasted or toasted away just as easily as they may be microwaved away.

I'm splitting this topic off because we've wandered way off the original poster's topic.

Cheers,

Oskaar
 
/sorry!

But heat in food is heat, however it's "created." All heat is is using some form of energy to speed up molecules, and the molecules themselves don't know or care what kind of energy gets them going.
 
Most people I've talked to have said that the problem they have with microwaves, and the reason they see them as dangerous, is by the method in which they cook food. "There's no heating going on like with normal cooking, your just hitting it with radiation and cooking it from the inside out."

Well... yes... but no. Microwave ovens cook by using what I think is termed "dielectric heating". Essentially the molecules align themselves in one field, then another, then another, etc. This bumping and moving around causes things to heat up, which is generating heat that isn't different than say, over a fire, it's just a different process. It's semi analogous to various brain imaging techniques, where atoms are aligned in various fields. My point is, microwave ovens are using a different technique to heat food than "conventional cooking", but the end result isn't going to be different. Microwave ovens are scientifically awesome in my opinion.


Anyway, purple potatoes sound very interesting. I've never seen them before. I'll have to check the local market and see if I can locate some!
 
Cooking in general damages the nutritional value of most vegitables, but not all. Some like nuts actually become more nutritious when cooked. As for whether a microwave does any additional damage above and beyond the damage done by the actual heat - I'd personally doubt it unless the food is being microwaved in a plastic container (not so safe) - but I wouldn't totally rule it out.

That's high frequency radiation the food is being bombarded with, and we know what that does to living organisms, though obviously the same effects wouldn't have time to manifest in a potatoe.:)

I'm not personally aware of any studies that really look at what gets jumbled around, smashed and recombined at a molecular level comparing the difference between cooking with low frequency radiation/reg heat and high frequency. So, until I hear otherwise from a reputable source, I personally wouldn't rule out that microwaves are doing extra damage. I could be totally in the dark though, maybe this has been gone over with a fine toothed comb and they have found no measurable differences.

That said, I don't even own a microwave, I think they encourage people to eat junk and don't accomplish anything I can't do on a stove top, oven or toaster oven.
 
Part of the thing about the ayurvedic medicine/Indian/holistic issue with microwaves is not just nutritional. Its also that it only provides dead energy, at least that's my understanding.

I don't want to hijack (or re-hijack) this into a debate about microwaving, though. I am really interested in purple potatos. So if you make this into an alcohol, wouldn't it fall more into a vodka? Or would it need to be distilled to be called vodka?
 
Last edited:
Kee, now you are speaking MY language...alcohol!! :)

So, in theory if these Purple Peruvian Potatoes were fermented in the manner that a vodka would be...would the resulting "vodka" be purple too? That could be one heck of a marketing strategy!!!
 
I'm not sure. I thought vodka's were made from potatos but I also am under the impression that they're distilled. I would think that the distillation process would strip the color.
 
Kee said:
I'm not sure. I thought vodka's were made from potatos but I also am under the impression that they're distilled. I would think that the distillation process would strip the color.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I fear that may be the case too...shame if it does, but REALLY cool if it doesn't!! ;D
 
Kee said:
Part of the thing about the ayurvedic medicine/Indian/holistic issue with microwaves is not just nutritional. Its also that it only provides dead energy, at least that's my understanding.

I don't want to hijack (or re-hijack) this into a debate about microwaving, though. I am really interested in purple potatos. So if you make this into an alcohol, wouldn't it fall more into a vodka? Or would it need to be distilled to be called vodka?
Click to expand...

Yeah it would have to be distilled to be called vodka. I have no idea if the purple color would stay. That would probably depend on the volatility of whatever chemical is purple. Purple vodka would be pretty interesting to see!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Barrel Char Wood Products

Viking Brew Vessels - Authentic Drinking Horns

Top Bottom