Best of 5: potatoes

Potatoes. What difference can there be? Quite a lot, some people claim. Let's see if they're lying.

Clockwise from top: pink fir apple, red desiree, cyprus, maris piper, highland burgundy. Throughout: bad photo.

Pink fir apple
These tiny, long and knobbly potatoes are very cute. One of mine had an end which looked like buttocks. Most amusing.

This is very sweet but floury - the sort of potato that's quite yellow with sugary starch. This would be good for potato salad, but its sweetness means you should be careful what you use it for. Very indulgent. Rating: 3/5

Desire red (I can only assume Turnips the grocers mean Desiree)
Fatly round and with a dull reddy-pink skin, these are pleasing to the eye.

Very taut and firm skin, this has cooked far more on the outside than in, so the core remains firm and waxy but overall it's floury in texture. Also distinctly sweet, but with a nuttiness of flavour - another good salading potato but I can imagine it mashes beautifully. Best peel it first, though. Rating: 3 1/2 / 5

Cyprus
A basic potato colour and shape, but with dark, small spots.

A consistent, watery texture. There's not much flavour here - if anything a little bitterness. A really potatoey potato, which would make a fine base for something else, but don't expect it to provide flavour in itself. Rating: 2/5

Maris Piper
Visualise a potato. That's a Maris Piper.

Interesting. This is chewy - maybe it's older, maybe it's a result of my cooking. Again, the skin is a bit chewy, but the flavour is that pure savoury starch that is the perfect basic potato taste. Almost a little grassy and definitely earthy. This would go with anything. I also like it because it was named after the road where I went to nursery school Rating: 3 / 5

Highland burgundy
These are reddish on the outside - when cut open, they vary from completely white, to a touch of purple, to almost totally purple with a white rim.

This is quite different. It's very grassy, like celeriac, with a lot of earthy taste in the mouth. It's also cooked unevenly. There's a little sweet aftertaste. It's a smooth texture, almost as if it's already mashed. A bit watery and thin-tasting for me. Rating: 2/5

Winner: Desiree! (if that's what it was) - love will conquer all

Comments

[Malc]

How did you cook them? Boiled? I wonder whether you would get a different order if you roasted them...
I like the red potatoes but I think mainly because I like the colour.

[Debbie]

Yup, boiled. I did consider mashing them individually too, but then remembered that my time on earth isn't infinite and it's probably not worth spending it mashing tiny pieces of potato with a thimbleful of milk. Roasting is a good point, but how to control for exact fat distribution, position in roasting pan, etc? (ok, real reason: the oven's broken)