Potato Ways
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Wash the potatoes thoroughly.
Peel the potatoes.
Place them in cold water for 1-2 hours if they are old.
Boil and dry
Cover the potatoes with boiling water.
Add coarse sea salt.
Boil briskly until done.
Test doneness with a sharp fork.
Drain the water.
Let the potatoes dry on the stove, covered with a clean napkin to keep warm.
Bake and roast
Wash the potatoes for baking.
Prick the skins.
Place in a hot oven until cooked.
Cut potatoes into uniform sizes.
Place around the roast for the last 45 minutes.
Baste with the roast meat.
Fry
Cut boiled potatoes into thin slices.
Fry in very hot drippings until brown.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Provide the starchy body of the dish, cooking into soft, fluffy flesh inside a tender skin.
- Drippings
- Add fat and flavour, and help the potato slices brown when fried in very hot fat.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the cooking water so the potatoes are flavoured through as they boil.
The step that matters
Fry in very hot drippings until brown. If the fat is not hot enough, sliced potatoes absorb grease and soak instead of crisping. Hot fat quickly drives off surface moisture, letting starch and sugars brown and form a crisp crust.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
You might also like
Delicate Cake246 recipes
Boiled Frosting69 recipes
Citron Cake68 recipes
Scotch Cake63 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.