Sprouting spuds ............

lucylema

I have a handful of potatoes which have now started to chit. I won't be using them for a few days and don't want to throw them away.

whats the best thing to do? Can I make anything with them that will freeze well?

ChocClare

Get a plastic tupperware and bung a bit of butter in it. Put the lid on loosely and zap in the microwave for a minute.

Meanwhile, slice an onion finely. Now bung that in your dish and zhuzh round with the butter. Put back in the microwave for 2 mins.

Meanwhile, peel and finely slice your potatoes. Add a layer at a time to your butter and onion, seasoning well with lots of pepper and not much salt after every layer, and mixing in well with the onions.

Pour milk over to just cover. Now zap in the microwave for 10 mins. Remove, stir, zap again for a further 10 mins, or until potatoes are cooked and all milk absorbed. You can add more butter at this point OR you can top with grated cheese.

This is "pretend" Dauphinoise potatoes. I make it without garlic, but you can put garlic in too, and you can add lots of chopped parsley if you have it.

It will sit quite happily in the fridge for a couple of days, or it will freeze very successfully. You can heat it through in the microwave (you might need to add another splash of milk) and the worst that will happen to it is that it will be more mashy than layery. Yummy anyway - and if you use cheese on top, it's even nice on its own.

lucylema

ChocClare, that sounds yummy and what a great idea. I shall do this later today!

Thank you

missychrissy

It's still early enough to put any 'chitting' potatoes into a large pot and cover with compost and a general fertiliser and have a good crop in 2 - 3 months time. I grow potatoes in pots well into November. I find it very difficult not to plant a chitting spud!

I want to see if I can grow them indoors in pots over the winter.

Nicifer_noonoo

Just discovered a bag of slightly sprouty new potatoes that I begrudge throwing out - anyone know what I can do with them? Will their taste be impaired?

culpepper

If they are sprouty,they are most likely old potatoes by now LOL.
As they get older,they lose their sweetness.
If you rub off the sprouted parts,they should be alright to eat.

Nicifer_noonoo

haha yes, old new potatoes sounds a bit silly 'new potatoes' is what it says on the bag, however inaccurate now. What kind of recipes do you think will be best? Potato bake or something?

Pink.

Hi Nicifer_noonoo,

I agree that they will be fine to eat. There are some recipe suggestions in this thread that may help:

Sprouting spuds ............

I'll add your thread to it later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

Buddingblonde

I have found a bag of very old sprouting potatoes at the back of a cupboard - they look a little crinkled and the sprouts are a good few inches in length.
If I peel them well will they be ok to cook or will the sprouting have changed the inside of the spuds?

uropachild

OMG! Just reading that made me do the ikky dance!! Sprouting potatoes make me feel weird.

(no help am i!?)

I found a good article on potatoes, let me see if i can get it up...

I cannot find any specific reference to this, but I am a biological scientist and ex farmer, so perhaps my answer to this will carry a bit of weight.

Potatoes go soft for various reasons, and their safety depends on the cause.

1/ the spud is infected with a blight that makes a spud soft even at harvest. Discard, as these can be quite toxic. Commercially bought spuds should not contain any like this, but home grown ones might get blight.

2/ "glassy" spud. This too is an infection. The spud is not so much soft, as has a translucent appearance and is hard even after cooking. It is not toxic, but the spud tastes unpleasant and has a nasty texture. Not worth eating unless you're starving.

3/ The potato has died in storage and is decaying. This should be fairly obvious. Like any dead thing, it will rot, and the first stage could well be softening, before dissolving into a puddle of foul smelling slime.

But say that hasn't happened yet, and the spud is dead, a bit soft, but there are no other signs, like mold, bad smell or obvious bacterial colonies on the surface.

If you cut it open and find black spots inside, then it is definitely infected and should be discarded. If not, it is probably safe, but it is still a bit like eating fresh road kill.....

It's probably a bad idea to eat a dead spud, even if as yet it isn't showing any obvious signs of decay. I just wouldn't.

4. The spud is sprouting. When this happens, the growing point takes nutrient from the body of the spud, making it soft. Now, provided it is sprouting in the dark, and you cut out the sprouts, the rest of the spud, admittedly soft, is quite harmless.

However, if the spud is sprouting in the light, it will certainly also be greening, and all green parts are poisonous! Again though, provided you cut away all green parts and skin, what's left is OK, BUT, again if the whole spud has turned green, the toxin will have spread deep into the flesh, so again it should definitely be discarded.

5/ The spud has been kept in the fridge. Bad idea. Spuds are alive, and should be stored at room temperature in the dark. Being kept at four degrees Celsius will in due course kill a spud just like it'd kill you.

However the refrigeration also inhibits decay. In fact a refrigerated spud may well still be alive, but moribund, and dehydrated, which will make it soft. This spud is quite safe to eat.

On the other hand, if you take your refrigerated soft spud and find it has black spots, or particularly black veins on the inside, it is not only dead, but is also infected with fungus. In my experience, small amounts of this are harmless, but *all* fungi should be treated with deep suspicion.

And though some fungi are harmless, most at least taste bad, others will make you nauseous, in some cases even cause actual food poisoning, an allergic reaction, and in a worst case scenario, kill you outright (Clostridium botulinus in particular.)

So, if your spuds have been kept in the fridge, have gone soft, don't smell funny, and have only superficial blemishes, I'd say if you're desperate, peel 'em, boil 'em and eat 'em.

They'll taste OK, and even firm up in the cooking, especially if you make fries from them. So, - you just won't know the difference. But all other instances of soft spuds except greening after removing all green parts, should be studiously avoided.

from answers.com