How the humble spud can become foundational home fries

A career in food writing has given me the chance to try out any recipe that caught my fancy, without giving a fig for ingredient costs. Jumbo lump crab, sushi-grade tuna, foie gras, whole beef strip loins, cave-aged French cheeses: fantastic stuff.

But those meals are the exceptions, a statistical anomaly over a lifetime of eating.

What interests me most as a cook is figuring out how to do the most with the least. Recipes that can turn cheap ingredients into worthwhile additions to your weekly rotation. Ways to recast staples like rice, ground beef, tofu, beans, and broccoli in ways that draw requests for repeats.

The pride of my recipe collection is the ones that other cooks ask for, then actually make. Survival cooking, the staples that will get you through lean times with a big fat smile on your face.

This week’s player: potatoes. Easy enough to turn into mashed, after you extract the reluctant implement from the drawer. Baked potatoes are basically set-it-and-forget-it, completely drama-free unless you forget to ventilate the skins before popping them in the oven.  

The next time your customers clamor for “home fries,” try this approach. Many preparations call for boiling potatoes to parcook them, but this technique uses a long, slow stovetop dehydration.

That’s why the hardest ingredient to find for this recipe will be patience. It takes about 45 minutes to get the desired effect, crunchy crusts hiding creamy centers.

Editor’s note: Four Bites recipes are written as a first draft for you to rewrite to your personal taste. For best use, follow the directions, once. Then adjust the salt and spice levels to your taste. There is no way for anyone else to decide how much salt you prefer. 

If you don’t have turmeric, onion powder, granulated or powdered garlic, or white pepper, it’s still worth going through the first batch. Salt and black pepper will give you a sense of the possibilities. But I’d at least add onion or garlic to the preparation before you bin the recipe as a failure.

This recipe is easy to bend to your palate. Curry powder, five spice powder, garam masala, berbere, white pepper, and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt have each given batches a distinctive spin in my kitchen. My only caveat for experimentation with your own spice selection is that dried leafy spices – oregano, basil, rosemary – will burn to nasty carbonized grit before the potatoes are done, due to the long pan-fry. 

Patient fried potatoes

2-3 pounds potatoes

2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon dried or granulated garlic

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon turmeric

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

1 teaspoon white pepper

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Wash potatoes, then cut them into dice roughly an inch square. Leave the peels on for more texture and nutrients. The little corners, too, they’ll get the crunchiest. 

Put them in a big bowl.

Put the biggest non-stick skillet or skillets you have on the stove. Turn the heat to high and cover the bottoms of the pans with oil, a quarter-inch deep.

Drizzle with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Season with spices, Mix thoroughly for several minutes, until potatoes are coated in a seasoned uniform.

Put potatoes in pan, in a single layer or a little deeper. (Piling potatoes deeper can work, too, but requires more active stirring throughout the process.)

With a spatula, turn the potatoes regularly, every minute or two at first. This is the high-heat phase of the process, starting the dehydration that must occur before potatoes can brown.

After about 10 minutes, when the potatoes are well heated and fragrant, turn the heat to medium-low, and stir again. 

This is where patience is required. Stir every 5 minutes or so, using the time and your spatula to turn unbrowned potato surfaces to the metal. Potatoes only brown when touching the pan.

It takes about 30 minutes more to get the golden brown and delicious results everyone appreciates. Keep cooking until they’re as crunchy as you like.

Eaten straight-up, they’re satisfying. Run off batches and put them in coconut curry or tomato sauce for a vegan dish. They reheat admirably, if there are any leftovers.

Do you have a recipe you want me to try? Send it to agalarneau@fourbites.net.