Turtle on 21/9/2006 at 18:37

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Yeah, I had the same problem with the potatoes, but the loin is sublime.

Gingerbread Man on 21/9/2006 at 20:34

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I'm trying to figure out what may be going wrong with the potatoes all over the place... they really are simple and awesome and I don't think I missed anything in the original recipe as posted here...

Just to be on the safe side, here's it again -- this time off the top of my head, which is usually more reliable than when I stop to think of things.

The Gremolade
Zest and juice from one lemon
A big handful of parsley, finely chopped
Couple of cloves garlic, minced well
Salt, pepper, and a little olive oil

You want this to look like sludge. It wants to be mostly parsley and when you push all the green goop up to one side of the bowl you don't want to see a lot of pooling lemon juice and oil. If you DO seem to have a lot of extra liquid in there, you can do one of two things: Either move the green sludge to another bowl and chuck the extra liquid (not really recommended) or add more parsley until it's not all runny anymore (also it never hurts to have what looks like too much gremolade, because it's easier to throw away what you don't need than to try to make do with too little, yeah?)

As always, taste things as you go. If you find you have to add a lot more parsley, you'll probably need to bump up the garlic a bit as well. And maybe the salt. In the end, you want this to have a nice balance between lemon, garlic, and parsley flavours, and you want it to be the consistency of soggy, shredded newspaper.


The Potatoes
It's pretty important which potatoes you use. Russets are damned near useless for this as you need to boil them far too much and they just get weird. Anything with a thin, papery skin will probably suit you just fine: I favour the wee red ones, but the yellows are just perfect as well. The only real trouble with the little red ones is that they tend to be rather irregularly-shaped and have deep eyes in them, and that can be a pain to clean up.

But yeah, you want them all roughly the same size, and all roughly round if you can manage it. And small. Ish.

Cold salty water, potatoes in, bring to a boil... same as anything. Boiling potatoes isn't that crazy a concept, I'm sure you're all really good at it. I suspect it's the second part that's messing things up.

You shock them in the ice bath because they're HOT. Usually you'd shock things to stop them cooking further, but seriously how much more boiled can a potato get? You want them to cool down because you're going to be squashing them in your hands.

Once they're cool enough to handle, squash each one gently and firmly between your palms. You only get one squash, so try to get it right. If you discover you haven't squashed it enough, don't give it a second go because you run the risk of breaking the potato into bits, and you don't want that.

You also don't want these things to be flat. It's not easy to describe because it all depends on each individual potato, but you more or less want them between half and a third as tall as they were before you squashed them. Say between a half-inch and an inch. I'm assuming you've started with small potatoes.

The oil you fry them in needs to be hot. Crazy hot. Near the smoke point. And you want there to be enough of it to come about halfway up the potatoes.

The potatoes are already cooked, so this isn't a long fry. That's why you need the oil screaming hot, and that's also part of the reason for letting them cool down -- you only want the outsides to crisp up a bit, and you don't want to overcook the insides. When the potatoes are cool and the oil is hot, it's going to take a lot longer for the heat to get all the way inside. So there's also a nice margin of error you can be comfortable with.

Also when oil is screeching hot it doesn't wick into things easily, so you're not going to get greasiness which will hurt the gremolade's chances of sticking, however vaguely, to the tatties.

Flip the potatoes only once. Get them out when they're done, blot them dry lightly to remove excess grease, let them sit if you want. Spoon the gremolade on, if you can get away with rubbing it into the cracks and whatnot in the potatoes with the back of the spoon, fantastic. But be gentle with it, and do it when they're already on the plate.



The big problem I can usually anticipate with these is that they might break during the fry. Especially when you're trying to flip them or remove them. This is pretty much a combination of three factors, all of which can only be controlled with practice and luck:

A) Oversquashing the potatoes will fragile them. If you suspect they're oversquashed a bit, be extra careful manipulating them. You can protect against overquash by either not squashing them so much (hurrr) or by not boiling them so much. Not boiling them so much is a tricky thing, because you don't want them to be grainy or undercooked inside. Also telling someone not to do something too much is like saying "Get off the bus two stops before I do" -- it's well-meaning, but kinda dopey.

B) Oil not hot enough / Potatoes not left long enough. The outsides of the potatoes ought to get a little crispy, and it's understandable that you get a little nervous watching these things kiss right up against the "omfg I burned them" line, but that's just another thing you have to get used to. As with all grilling or frying, you need to leave something alone on a very hot surface so that it doesn't stick. Things stick at first, then stop sticking. It's all in the timing.

C) Be really gentle with the flipping / removing. Use the right tools. A set of tongs isn't the way to go here, you want a spatula. Tilt the pan if you have to, but with that amount of oil in there I wouldn't recommend it -- especially if you have a gas stove. Use something to hold the top of the potato gently if you need to. Lay it down, don't let it drop.

That's about all I can think of that you can actually control in terms of preventing breakage.

And as far as lemony gremolade goes... well that's just the essence of cooking. You want to figure out how to balance ingredients so that they taste good to you, so you want to taste things constantly. The worst that can happen is you get a small mouthful of something that you don't like the taste of, but that's all part of the game.

Get a nice balance of garlic, lemon, and parsley, not too much oil, and you're good to go.

Scots Taffer on 21/9/2006 at 23:54

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Villagers require photos, because seriously it just doesn't work for me. I've tried twice to no avail and I can manage most things.

What I was finding is that you get them fine when boiled but the ice bath was making the skin start to peel away and then combined with the squashing meant instant potato bomb. You're standing there with hands covered in white fluffy potato innards, on your knees in the kitchen screaming NOOOOOOoooooooooooo!

Also, I miss kingofthenet, these stars burn too bright too fast. :(

Strangeblue on 22/9/2006 at 03:44

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Ohhhhh.... so that's what gremolade is.

Damn you Ginger. Why amn't I in Davis, making you cook these for me? Phooey! I hate you.

Gorgonseye on 22/9/2006 at 14:46

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Wasn't Kingofthenet supposed to permanently banned?