I first learned this technique while working in Tennessee. There are a couple of neat technical tricks here, such as soaking the cut potatoes in hot salty water before drying them and adding them to the deep fryer. The potatoes themselves are cut using the finest cross-wise julienne attachment on a Japanese mandolin.
The potatoes do not need to be salted after they come out of the deep fryer, as they have already been soaked in hot salty water before being fried.
The end result is an incredibly light, fine, and crispy fried potato. You can arrange the tiny fried potato pieces to make a cute little nest to put on top of a fried egg, or serve with any dish that might go nicely with some finely-cut, fried potatoes.
Angel Hair Fried Potatoes
I first learned this technique while working in Tennessee. There are a couple of neat technical tricks here, such as soaking the cut potatoes in hot salty water before drying them and adding them to the deep fryer. The potatoes themselves are cut using the finest cross-wise julienne attachment on a Japanese mandolin.The potatoes do not need to be salted after they come out of the deep fryer, as they have already been soaked in hot salty water before being fried. The end result is an incredibly light, fine, and crispy fried potato. You can arrange the tiny fried potato pieces to make a cute little nest to put on top of a fried egg, or serve with any dish that might go nicely with some finely-cut, fried potatoes.
Ingredients
- 4 Yukon Gold potatoes
- 1 quart of boiling salted water
- 4 cups of vegetable oil, (for frying)
Instructions
- Peel the Yukon Gold potatoes and submerge in cold water.
- Use the fine julienne cutting attachment on a sharp mandolin to cut the potatoes into fine julienne strips.
- *Be careful when using the mandolin.
- Wash the cut potatoes in cold water to get rid of some of the exterior starch.
- Bring a quart of salty water to a boil in a medium-sized sauce pot.
- Remove the pot of boiling water from the heat.
- Drain the julienne potato pieces and place them in the hot salty water, off the heat.
- Use chopsticks to stir the mixture occasionally, and wait for 6 minutes.
- After 6 minutes, drain the potatoes and spread them out on paper towels.
- Very gently pat the potatoes dry with more paper towels to get them as dry as you can.
- Heat vegetable oil in a deep-sided frying pot to 350F.
- Carefully cook the cut potatoes in small batches in the hot oil, using a spider or slotted spoon to remove the potatoes when they have turned lightly golden in color.
- *Because the fine julienne potato slices are so thin, and because they have already been partially cooked in the hot water bath earlier, they only need a minute or two to cook in the oil and turn lightly golden. Avoid giving the potatoes too much color here, as they can develop a slightly bitter flavor.
- Drain the fried potatoes on paper towels.
- Repeat the frying process with remaining slices of potato, cooking the potatoes in small batches.
- Serve while warm.
Notes
Be very careful when adding the soaked and dried potatoes to the hot oil, as they will still contain a bit of water when they enter the frying oil and can cause some potentially dangerous bubbling activity in the pot.