Today I’m cooking some sprouting potatoes.  Some people wonder if cooking sprouting potatoes is safe or if they’re poisonous.  Trust me, they’ll be fine!

I bought supermarket potatoes over a month ago and they’d been removed from the plastic bag and stored in a green “stay fresh” bag in a dark cupboard, but when I pulled them out to check if they were OK they were sprouting.  If you are somebody who takes any notice of “best before” dates then the “best before” date on this bag was the 18th of last month.  Best before is just a clue – after the date on the packet it just means they won’t be as great as they’d been before, it doesn’t mean you can’t eat them.

I’ve got too many potatoes at the moment as I’d bought three 2.5Kg bags of  potatoes when they were on special offer at just 29p per bag in the supermarket, so not to be sniffed at!  This was the first bag I’d bought – but I was then persuaded to buy two more bags in the following 10 days as they were Maris Pipers.  The Maris Pipers are faring better, so I put those back into the cupboard, but this bag needed cooking.

I decided to just cook the whole lot and turn it into mash, some of which I can eat today for lunch and the rest can be boxed up in the fridge for a couple of days – if I’ve still not eaten them by then I’ll pop the boxes into the freezer.

Firstly though – those sprouting bits of the potato – are they safe to eat?  The short answer is you just cut those off.  These potatoes are still quite firm, so it’s just a question of cutting off the sprouts and then treating the rest of the potato as I usually would – so I’ll steam these in the microwave steamer.   I could do them in two batches, but what I’ll do is put the whole lot into the steamer – it’ll take an extra 5-6 minutes or so to cook them as there are a lot of them, but that’s something I’d rather do than to cook two batches!

What If The Potatoes Are Soft and Manky?

• If the potatoes are really shrivelled and soft and manky, just bin them.  They’ll taste a bit grotty and you really won’t fancy eating them anyway.

What About Green Bits?

• Cut any green bits out – these potatoes hadn’t got any green bits.

Just cut back any sprouts, or green bits and manky bits until you’re just left with firm(ish) potato flesh!  Slightly less than firm potatoes are fine, it’s when they’re super-springy you should bin them.

Method for Microwave Cooking Sprouting Potatoes: 

1. Cut off the sprouting parts of the potatoes. Peel and slice the potatoes.
2. Place the potato slices in a microwave steamer with some water and the lid on, add salt if you cook with salt (I usually don’t bother).
3. Microwave on high power (800 watts) for 4 minutes at a time, turning them with a large serving spoon after each 4 minutes so they all get a chance to cook. Expect them to take 20-24 minutes depending on how many potatoes are to be cooked and the power of the microwave.
4. Once cooked, mash with a knob of butter and any salt/pepper you wish to add, and/or a dash of milk/cream.  I don’t add milk or cream to my mashed potatoes as I like them “rustic and simple”.

That’s the end of those then, just two more bags to keep an eye on in the cupboard.

Waste not, want not!  I have a Zero Waste policy, so I have to eat everything I buy.