The disagreement started once we saw all those new Olive Garden commercials doing it. Her point is that nothing is going to taste great with the same thing used twice in a dish. I say differently. Like if you add a good Italian sauce or something and use rigatoni noddles.
A very common Indian daily meal is rotis (flatbreads) with thinly sliced, heavily sliced fried potatoes. Other meals include lentils (carb heavy) + rotis + rice. I’ve even had rotis + wheat & meat porridge. Carbmaxxing is a proud Indian tradition.
Pasta e patate is an Italian pasta dish with potatoes and it is delicious!
Related: May I introduce you to the Japanese abomination known as “Yakisoba Pan?” It’s a fried noodle sandwich. Carbs with fried carbs on top. I honestly can’t believe America didn’t create this.
I would like to introduce you to Guiso de Fideos:
A very traditional Argentinian food made with potatoes, noodles and other ingredients.
I would agree that just potatoes and noodles is way too much carb if that’s the only food you’re eating, but if you add other things or have it as a side dish it could work. Gnocchi are potato+flour and they’re not more starchy than other pasta, it’s all about the proportions with everything else.
https://momsdish.com/recipe/617/ukrainian-dumplings-aka-galushki
Ukrainian halushki. Its dumplings, frequently served with potatoes
Pierogis are frequently potato stuffed and very ravioli-esque and delicious.
It certainly would count as two starches together but may be a stretch conflating the wrapper with ravioli with pasta with noodles.
Japanese/golden curry, massaman curry and others usually have potatoes in there. They are usually served with rice. But ive had them over noodles lots as well.
What about samosa? Potato stuffed into a bread and baked.
I make chicken soup (almost a stew) with both potatoes and (egg) noodles.
Gnocchi ARE potato pasta (at least the traditional version is). The four ingredients are potato, wheat flour, eggs, and salt.
I think there’s times where they work better than others and really depends on the dish. If you make a nice vegetable soup with fixed potatoes, and toss in some twirly pasta at the end, then they will work well as a medley and each bring something a little different to the taste and texture. Same with a vegetable curry with potatoes over rice.
If you had potatoes au gratin, and somehow incorporated Mac and cheese, ignoring differences in cook time between the potatoes and pasta, I think you’d feel they were a bit redundant. Not bad tasting, but they aren’t really bringing something that different to the party.
When I think about balanced food I always look to the mix of fats, acids, salts, and sugars with starches providing structure for those flavors. So I would look to mix starches that being a different type of structure to make an interesting dish.
You can put a potato into anything if you’re determined enough.
Can it taste great? Yes. Is it too much starch in one meal? If your portions sizes are too big, also yes.
Don’t forget rice a roni. Pasta and rice. I’ve heard some even consider this a treat.
In San Francisco?
Oh noo, all that starch taste, inundating my starch receptors, leaving my mouth all starchy…
It feels illegal but it’s probably fine.
