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Are there any recipes you know of where if potatoes weren’t included it would fundamentally change the recipe or the way it tastes? For example, a lot of recipes that have mashed or sliced potatoes you could sub in cauliflower for, but are there any recipes where potatoes have to be included or else the dish wouldn’t be the same?

I came up with a few examples of where potatoes only are needed but I’d love to hear your feedback: - Pierogis - French meat pie - Latkes

pimentoandprose
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  • I think this will result in a list of equally valid responses, thus making it off topic for our site. – moscafj Jan 28 '20 at 14:22
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    Well, if you make a potato-leek soup without potatoes, it is not a potato-leek soup, it will be a leek soup. – Max Jan 28 '20 at 14:23
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    I'm not sure what the idea here is. Potatoes au gratin and cauliflower au gratin are different recipes, and one could not be mistaken for the other. Is the question just, do potatoes have a distinct flavor? – Sneftel Jan 28 '20 at 15:10
  • His question was could I find a recipe where potatoes are so integral to the makeup of the dish that any other replacement would completely change how the dish tastes? Ex: au gratin example, if you switch out potatoes for cauliflower, similar textures and taste, however subbing in something else in a latke would completely change the dish. – pimentoandprose Jan 28 '20 at 15:13
  • Btw., there are also latkes based on other root vegetables... – Stephie Jan 28 '20 at 15:17
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    Sorry, but you will never find an objective criterion for where the boundary is between "completely changes the dish" and "does not change the dish completely". You will always find individuals who are certain that a given dish falls into the one or other category, but you won't be able to combine their opinions without creating contradictions. – rumtscho Jan 28 '20 at 15:30

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Mash made with butter (and garlic if you like, or sour cream, mustard, or cheese, etc.) will be rather different made from another starchy veg, and not just in colour. Common mashed veg might be sweet potato, or carrot and swede, and these, whether plain or flavoured, taste very different from mashed potato.

The same can be said for chips/fries/wedges: put the same seasoning on potato and sweet potato and you'll get different flavours. It's hard to separate the texture aspect completely for these, but the flavour difference dominates.

It's more a matter of serving tradition - yes potatoes are quite plain and enhanced by other things, but it's not essential to do so. The addition of butter to a baked potato or new potatoes is a lot to do with mouthfeel; the quantity is often too small to have much effect on the flavour. Also, even between potato varieties there's a difference in flavour, if you don't add so much seasoning that you mask it. This is particularly obvious with new potatoes.

In fact new potatoes are the dish in which it would be hardest to replace the potato with anything else (and it's not just because it's so simple - baked sweet potato, while not the same as baked potato, is rather similar and also has basically no other ingredients). If your friend reckons potatoes don't have their own flavour, steam some Charlottes or Jersey Royals and serve them those

Chris H
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