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Saratoga Potatoes

Thin-sliced potatoes fried in beef suet until lightly browned, then cooled to become dry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Saratoga Potatoes

Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Saratoga Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes very thin.

  2. Soak the slices in salt water for at least 10 hours or overnight.

  3. Dry the potato slices on a towel.

Fry and finish

  1. Heat beef suet in a deep vessel to a depth of at least 2 inches until smoking hot.

  2. Fry half of the potato slices quickly until light brown.

  3. Remove the potatoes and place them on a dish, sprinkling with salt while hot.

  4. Allow to cool; they will become dry.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Irish potatoes
Provide the starchy slices that crisp and turn golden when fried.
Beef suet
Supplies the frying fat that conducts heat and gives the slices a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Frying the potato slices quickly in very hot suet. If the suet is not smoking hot, the slices absorb fat and turn greasy rather than crisp. Frying in batches keeps the oil temperature high, so the slices brown lightly and dry out as they cool.

“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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