Saratoga Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel and slice the potatoes in cold water.
Wash the sliced potatoes thoroughly and drain.
Spread the potatoes between clean cloths and pat dry.
Fry and salt
Fry a few slices at a time in boiling lard.
Salt the potatoes immediately after removing them from the lard.
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
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch that crisps on the outside while staying fluffy inside once fried.
- Lard
- Fat that conducts high heat evenly, browning and crisping the potato surface.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the crisp surface directly while the potatoes are still hot and oily.
The step that matters
Drying the potato slices before frying. Surface water turns to steam in the hot lard, cooling the fat and making the slices soggy and greasy instead of crisp. Patting them fully dry lets the surface brown quickly.
“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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