Purple potato glue...

[TreasonousBastard]

so, I got this small bag of small purple potatoes and threw them in a pot. Wasn't too thrilled about the taste when cooked (unlike some large baked purple potatoes) but was jonesing for mashed spuds of some sort.

Lost the potato ricer and masher in the move, so threw them into the food processor, which immediately stalled. Opened it up and this gelatinous mass was in there. It was like a loose pizza dough. Or maybe silly putty-- although it stuck to itself, it didn't stick badly to any thing else, so it cleaned out fairly easily.

Tasted like crap, too. Yuck!

Anyone have any idea what it is about purple potatoes that does this? Can't think of any other vegetable that happens with.

[Warpy]

1. Maybe they're one of the varieties the Quechua people turn into chunyos

which simply means "frozen potatoes," which they freeze, skin, trample flat, and freeze again.

Most people say they're good boiled, mashed or fried, the only difference between them and Irish cobblers is the color. They are nutritionally denser, supplying both more carbs and protein than white potatoes.

Likely what turned them into glue was the food processor, which also turns white potatoes into glue unless you use a hell of a lot of cream or sour cream to lighten them up.

[oftheforest]

2. It's something about the gluten.

It would happen to any kind of potato. If you use a blender, or handheld blender, the same thing happens.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Yes, Warpy suggested that but...

I experimented with some red potatoes lying around and they just mashed. Or seemed to.

But, further experiments showed that food processors, blenders and such do extrude the gluten, or some protein. Even using a hand mixer for any amount of time caused problems with the red taters if I started with the hand blender or food processor.

It seriously affected the favor, too. The gunk tasted nothing like the potatoes before messing with them.

Lesson learned.

[hobbit709]

8. No gluten in potatoes.

[sir pball]

4. You broke too many of the starch granules.

It's not gluten, potatoes are GF - when you overwork them, especially with sharp blades, you break up the starch granules too much, which has the end result of turning one of the most perfect foods on Earth into wallpaper paste. Any kind of potato will do it, and there's not much in the way of a fix. There are "fixes" like thinning them, or loading them up with fat, but they all still turn out with a nasty goopy mouth-coating feel. Time to buy a new masher!

[cbayer]

5. Potatoes + food processor = Paste similar to elmers glue.

I'm not sure why your purple potatoes weren't tasty. They usually taste just like other potatoes to me.

But I am very certain why you got the silly putty.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. It was the processing that changed the flavor...

I cooked up some red potatoes and they tasted just fine, even when mashed old-fashioned away. (Purple potatoes always tasted fine when baked or boiled, too.)

But, toss 'em in the Ninja and not only texture, but flavor was radically changed. I still think it was somehow messing with the proteins that made paste and killed flavor-- the purple spuds are higher in protein so would turn to paste faster, as was proven by my experiments.

[cbayer]

7. Argghhh!! The Ninja!

I only recently was introduced to one of these.



It's the starch, not the protein, that causes the problem. Don't know about the difference between purples and others, but I've created clue out of white potatoes. It took me a couple of times to become convinced, but I eventually did.

Hope you get some good mashed potatoes tonight!