Recently harvested new potatoes are delectable. These small, very fresh potatoes are so tender and delicately sweet, and have a firm, yet creamy texture. I love them boiled, roasted, and in potato salads, especially when the skin has been scraped, and there are colorful bits of skin still clinging to the potatoes.
According to a 1925 home economics textbook, School and Home Cooking by Carlotta A. Greer, potatoes are prepared for boiling by paring “them as thin as possible, or in the case of new potatoes, scrape them.”
My mother and grandmother taught me to scape potatoes with a paring knife, and it is very easy to do. The feathery skin is so different from the leathery skin of older potatoes. When I was recently scraping potatoes, it dawned on me that I never taught my children how to scrape them. In the big scheme of things, this is probably a minor omission, but it made me wonder if people commonly scrape new potatoes today.
When scraping new potatoes, the potatoes should first be washed. The potatoes are then scraped by holding a paring knife at angle where the blade is dragging slightly against potato. The blade is then pulled across the potato to remove the skin. After the potatoes have been scraped, they should be rinsed to remove loose skin fragments. If desired, the potato eyes can be removed with the tip of the knife. It’s okay if some of the skin remains.
I used to sit on a stool and watch my grandmother scrape new potatoes for creaming.
It’s nice to hear that this post brought back some good memories of your grandmother.
Interesting. I just eat all the peelings!
I like potatoes both with and without their skins.
You’re right. This isn’t a skill I’ve passed on to my children. Failed again ….
Though neither my children nor yours probably care whether they know how to scrape potatoes. 🙂
Alas, so true. They probably do not even know what “scrape” a carrot or potato means.
Actually, my children, especially my son, are pretty interested in cooking and seem pretty au fait with everything culinary – except for warming the plates before dishing up, for some reason!
It’s awesome that your children enjoy cooking, ever if they do a few things differently. Actually, my children also enjoy cooking.
We did something right then, between us!
They seem to be jogging along happily without it. Or maybe they know anyway? I haven’t noticed.
That’s what my husband says. He says that anyone could easily figure out how to scrape potatoes. I questioned whether he could do it – and he immediately demonstrated that he could.
Show off!
I always thought that one of the pluses of new potatoes was with a thin skin you washed the potato and leave the peel.
But I have used a spoon to “scrape” ginger….
New potatoes are tasty either with or without their skins. I personally like to remove the skins, but it sure isn’t needed.
What an excellent idea! Thank you for sharing your knowledge of scraping potatoes.
It’s nice to hear that you enjoyed this post.
My grandmother taught me to scrape a new potato, and for what it is worth how to scrape a carrot. I don’t do either one now, just use a vegetable brush to wash them.
You’re absolutely right. People used to also scrape carrots. I didn’t think about that when I wrote the post, but I definitely scraped carrots years ago. I wonder if carrots are more nutritious when only an extremely thin amount of the carrots’ exterior is removed. I think that I vaguely remember hearing that there are more nutrients right beneath the skin of vegetables.
I looked it up, and the reason was the skin of the carrot can be bitter. Scraping it removed the bitter part, and made it taste better, especially if it was to be eaten raw, as in a salad. The skin could be brownish when cooked, so in addition to the bitterness, was not visually appealing. Perhaps scrubbing the carrot with a good stiff vegetable brush removed the thin bitter skin?
Fascinating – now I’m going to have to try eating a carrot with the skin on and see if it tastes bitter.
I normally don’t remove the new potato skin, but now this is an option.
It adds variety to sometimes remove the skin.
I love potatoes, and we always scrape or peeled here manually.