What is the nutritional value of young potatoes, why are they so popular with consumers? Useful properties of a root vegetable, possible harm when consumed. Simple recipes for young potatoes, interesting information about such a familiar vegetable. With the help of potato juice, you can treat migraines - it contains acetylcholine, which reduces blood pressure. External use of potatoes has an analgesic and softening effect, potato juice is an antiseptic and promotes healing of damaged skin.
Harm and contraindications to eating young potatoes
The benefits and harms of young potatoes largely depend on the growing conditions. Tubers with greenish pulp are dangerous to health. A greenish color appears under the influence of light - solanine, a poisonous substance, accumulates. In small quantities, it is harmless, but already in the amount of 100 g per day, intoxication of the body can begin.
Young potatoes are not buried deep to ripen faster, so greenish roots are more common and should be set aside and used for planting.
With obesity, the amount of potatoes in the diet should be limited. Also, you can not treat gastritis and peptic ulcer against a background of low acidity with potato juice.
Due to the high starch content after exacerbation of pancreatitis, potatoes are not recommended to be included in the daily menu.
Skillfully cooked potato dishes increase potency and, as already mentioned, sexual desire, so they should not be overused in the treatment of sexually transmitted infections.
You should not be treated with the juice of young potatoes for cholelithiasis and nephrolithiasis, this can stimulate the removal of calculi.
Young potatoes should not be eaten with a tendency to diarrhea - it speeds up metabolic processes in the intestines, and the condition worsens.
Allergy to young potatoes can occur in people with intolerance to the Solanaceae family. However, in this case, there may be exceptions: allergic reactions develop to fresh juice, to the touch of leaves, flower pollen and berry juice. After culinary processing, negative changes in the body are no longer observed.
New potato recipes
If the recipes from young potatoes are arranged in places with respect to their benefits for the body, then liquid mashed potatoes and steamed potatoes will come first, then boiled tubers, which are preferably eaten with peels, then peeled root vegetables. The list will be completed with baked potatoes in foil. In the first place in the list of healthy and low-calorie dishes, there are thin mashed potatoes in water and steamed potatoes. Next comes the young potatoes, cooked in their skins, and it is recommended to eat them with their skins, as well as potatoes in their skins, baked in foil.
Buttered dishes and fried slices of fries have nothing to do with healthy food. They have very few nutrients and a lot of calories.
Here's how to cook young potatoes to enjoy the flavor and not get fat:
- Boiled potatoes … Small tubers are washed, placed in a saucepan and cooked until tender, adding salt to taste. Then the water is drained, a small piece of butter is thrown into the container and stirred so that it is completely absorbed. Then sprinkle the roots with your favorite herbs - basil, dill, parsley … The same dish can be steamed.
- Potatoes with garlic and dill … This dish is not very healthy, but it tastes like spring. Approximately 0.5 kg of medium-sized young tubers are washed very cleanly, trying to remove the crust, then dried with a paper towel. Heat a frying pan, pour about 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil on it, heat and lay out the potatoes, covering the container with a lid. The tubers are salted to taste and stir constantly while they are fried. At this time, they are engaged in garlic - 2-3 cloves are cut into slices, dill - approximately a bunch is finely chopped. Pour the chopped ingredients into the pan 2-3 minutes before the end of cooking. You can also serve in it.
- Light fries … To do this, you need to cook 5-6 tubers of young potatoes, 1-2 eggs, a pinch of salt, caraway seeds, paprika, garlic powder. While the oven is heating up, cut the tubers into strips, beat the eggs with seasonings, and then pour the potatoes with the egg mixture and stir. Spread foil on a baking sheet, place potatoes in 1 layer, put them in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes at a temperature of 180-200 degrees. Sprinkle with herbs before serving. It should be noted that fries from young potatoes are baked without the use of oil.
- Vegetable diet soup … The easiest way to cook it is according to the classic recipe. It includes: potatoes - 2-3 pieces, carrots, onions, a small tomato and parsley root. Peel the potatoes, cut into 4 parts, put them to boil in 1.5 liters of cold water. While the tubers are boiled until half cooked, the tomatoes are finely chopped, the carrots and parsley root are rubbed on a coarse grater and 7 minutes before being cooked, they are placed in a saucepan, adding a whole onion. Salt to taste. With the taste of vegetable soup from young potatoes, you can improvise, add a few inflorescences of cauliflower or broccoli, a handful of chopped white cabbage. If there is no goal to lose weight, then vegetables are simmered in a pan with butter. In this case, the onion is crushed. Before serving, sprinkle fresh parsley and dill on each plate.
- Mashed potato soup … The following products are used: potatoes 4-5 pieces, wheat flour - a tablespoon, a little less than a glass of milk, half an egg, butter - a tablespoon, water - 1.5 cups. Put the potatoes to boil, cut into slices, after 20 minutes, when they are boiled, add flour and mix everything with a whisk or blender until smooth. Bring to a boil again, beat the egg with milk. Remove the saucepan with the soup from the heat and add the milk-egg mixture, beat again. The butter is added before serving.
- Young potatoes in sour cream sauce … Peel potatoes (5-6 tubers), pour cold water and set aside. Add a teaspoon of flour to sour cream (2 tablespoons), pepper and salt to taste, garlic passed through a crusher. Hard cheese - a piece of about 50 g - is rubbed, potato slices, previously dried with a paper towel, are placed in a pan, poured with sour cream sauce and sprinkled with grated cheese. They are baked at a temperature of 180-190 degrees for about half an hour.
Traditionally, young potato dishes are served with herbs - parsley and dill, but you can use mint, coriander and basil.
Interesting facts about young potatoes
In nature, potatoes are found as a perennial plant - it is annual only in a cultivated state. In wild potatoes, which still grows in South America, the tubers are small, barely expressed, it reproduces by seeds. It is difficult to propagate a cultivated plant by seeds.
Initially, the use of young potatoes was not popular - tubers with a thin skin caused distrust in European countries, where ripe root crops were preferred. In Russia, potatoes were not popular at that time - the peasants did not know how to grow them, they tried to eat berries or young tubers, which developed almost on the surface of the soil, and were pickled. But it was thanks to these same peasants that they began to use young potatoes, however, it happened a little later than "Peter's times".
The peasants, who were forced to sow potatoes, dug up tubers and sold them to the nearest drinking establishments "for vodka". And the owners of the inn began to prepare an appetizer from "earthy apples", discovering their high taste.
Young potatoes are a storehouse of nutrients, while they are fresh, they contain 3 times more potassium, magnesium, vitamin C and fiber than mature roots. Young tubers are completely free of cholesterol, and their benefits can be compared to a banana of the same weight. It should be noted that banana is saturated with starch, which is minimal in young potatoes.
It is better to eat young potatoes with a peel, it is under it that all the useful substances are located.
With the help of young potatoes, fasting days can be carried out. 2-3 days a week is enough to get rid of 1.5-2 kg per month, without any effort. It must be borne in mind - the fasting diet is seasonal. Young potatoes grown in a greenhouse with a lot of fertilizer are not suitable for weight loss.
You can grow potatoes with a wide range of positive temperatures - this significantly affects the yield, but the plant remains viable. It is thanks to the temperature resistance that young potatoes can be obtained in early May. If you plant the sprouted tubers in the first February thaw and cover the garden with agrofibre, you can enjoy the first harvest in May.
But to store root crops should only be ripe, "old" with a dense skin, and at a temperature of 6-16 degrees Celsius. Young roots cannot be stored even in the refrigerator for more than 3 weeks. In addition, they completely lose their beneficial properties.
Potatoes are a self-pollinating plant, so if potato honey is offered at the bazaar, you should not buy it.
After sowing the tubers in the ground, sprouts appear in 4-7 weeks, from flowering to wilting of the tops it takes 4-6 weeks. Harvest after the tops are dry. Young potatoes of the earliest varieties begin to be dug out 40-45 days after planting. Just do not completely remove the bush - the tubers are selected one at a time, carefully burying the remaining ones.
When choosing potatoes for a particular dish, it is worth asking about the qualities inherent in this or that variety. For cooking, you should take friable tubers with a high starch content, for frying - dense, not falling apart during heat treatment, they have less starch. Red potatoes have more beta-carotene, yellow and purple ones have more vitamin C.
With diabetes mellitus, only young low-starch potatoes can be introduced into the diet.
You can cook the same dishes from young potatoes as from “old” ones, but fry them is undesirable. When cooked this way, it becomes tough. But if you want fried potatoes, and there is no other option, you can use root vegetables with a delicate thin skin. By the way, many people prefer elastic slices, which, if fried well, crunch like McDonald's fries.
How to cook young potatoes - watch the video:
You cannot eat young potatoes if, when you try to peel off the peel with your finger, it begins to peel off or juice is released from the pulp. Peeling of the skin indicates immaturity or improper storage, and the release of liquid indicates an unacceptable amount of nitrates in the chemical composition.
