Saratoga Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the potatoes thinly.
Soak them in cold water overnight with a small piece of alum to make them crisp.
Rinse the potatoes in cold water and dry them with a crash towel.
Fry
Fry the potatoes in boiling lard until light 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
- Starch that fries into a crisp outer layer while the inside stays tender.
- Alum
- Firms the potato surface during soaking so the slices hold their crispness when fried.
- Lard
- Fat that conducts heat for frying and gives the potatoes a golden, savory browning.
The step that matters
Drying the potatoes before frying. Surface water turns to steam in hot fat, which causes spattering and soggy patches instead of crisp browning. Thoroughly dried slices fry more evenly and crisp better.
“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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