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Crisp Potatoes

Crisp potatoes are fried in boiling fat until light brown, then drained and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crisp Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut cold raw potatoes into shavings, cubes, or small shapes.

Fry

  1. Fry a few pieces at a time in boiling fat.

  2. Toss them with a knife until they are a uniform light brown.

  3. Drain and season with salt and pepper.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold raw potatoes
Provide the starchy base that fries to a crisp outside and a soft inside.
Boiling fat
Conducts heat quickly to cook the potatoes and drive off surface moisture for crispness.

The step that matters

Frying in small batches. Frying only a few pieces at a time keeps the fat hot. Crowding the pan cools the fat, so the potatoes steam and soak up grease instead of browning and crisping.

“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.

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